Greg was right about his parents. The family was nothing like you might expect. His father was an unusually happy man, having none of the beauty that infected everyone around him.
Mom, who became “mom” quite easily, was forty going on twenty. She had Scandinavian blond hair and a beauty for which cosmetics would have been a distraction. It was easy to see where Greg and Doug got their looks, poise, and sense of self.
You might suspect that Greg had some extra power in the family, but he didn’t. The most interesting aspect of the family dynamics was their individuality. Each was as different from the other as was possible.
Greg was most like his mother. Around his parents he was funny and easy going. Doug was more like his father, quiet and thoughtful. I fit like I belonged there. I was greeted happily each time I showed up, which was a lot.
At first I was reluctant to go to the house too often during the week. Each time I showed up everyone greeted me as if I’d been there and they might not have seen me before. When it was supper time, I was given a plate and dished up dinner off the stove like everyone else.
Mom’s first chore, after getting home and getting into her jeans and a well worn blouse that hung loosely out of her jeans, was to begin cooking. She might talk to Doug in the living room or Greg in the kitchen as she pulled the meal together. It was ready for Pop to eat as soon as he liked, once he came in from the base.
Their sons were polite and well-mannered, no bother at all. The interactions were all pleasant and friendly. I never heard one of them raise his voice when speaking to any of the others.
I found them fascinating. If I loved Greg, and certainly I loved Doug, it was the entire family that was lovable. There were no complaints to be picked at. They all got along as if they liked, loved each other.
Their acceptance of me as the third son was without condition. I was expected to be there with Greg. If I wasn’t there with Greg when they got there, they wanted to know why I wasn’t there, always suspecting Greg was capable of running anyone off if he tried. They weren’t going to let him run me off, but that didn’t mean he didn’t try.
Greg didn’t try often, because I played that game too well for him to figure out. There was the temper that could arise when Greg got to feeling I was getting too close. I rarely reacted to whatever annoying comment Greg made. I’d disappear for days or a week, seeing Doug on the side. When I did finally relent, I’d know if I was gone long enough if he said, “Where the hell have you been? You know I depend on you.”
“Oh, no, I didn’t know that.”
“You know you can’t pay attention to anything I say,” he’d say, as his apology for being rude and obnoxious.
I think I knew Greg better than he knew himself. Leaving him to punish him was a tactic I didn’t feel in the least bit guilty about. Greg may have been holding all the cards, but I could quit the game any time I pleased.
Once Greg’s parents were in the picture, it wasn’t as easy for Greg and I to fall out. Especially with Doug around to referee balls and strikes, and relay any pertinent information to his parents, who always took my side any time Greg looked like he might get out of hand.
I never again neglected Doug because of his brother. Doug was fun to be around all the time. He was a nice guy and he liked me. As complicated as it could have become, it didn’t. Doug and I were both realists and we didn’t try to make our friendship anything but what it was. It had nothing to do with his brother and was none of Greg’s business.
That didn’t mean my feelings for Greg changed. They were always intense. Whatever it was that first drew me to him, wasn’t going away. Loving Greg meant not giving into him if I wanted to survive the experience.
Greg was neither bad nor good. Greg was Greg. He’d take all he could get, especially when it came to attention. He had an addiction to it. He’d lived in places, and around people, who made it easy for him to leverage his assets into the kind of attention he craved.
Inside his family he couldn’t be obnoxious or arrogant. He couldn’t get away with any of his excesses around them. This explained why he tried to ditch them when possible. He had a place and a function as a family member. At home with his parents he was quite a likable lad.
There was no call for me to defend myself or my interest in their sons. I came there with one of them and I had the approval of the other son, which got me a pass.
Over the years, they must have figured out that I was in love with Greg and very attached to Doug. If they knew it, and I wasn’t trying to hide it, there was no mention made of it in my presence. Our friendships were easy and enjoyable and we all got along, except when Greg was being difficult.
After a few weeks of Greg being home, I was officially his mode of transportation to doctor’s appointments and other places he needed or wanted to go. Except during my work eyes, when his parents covered getting him to where he needed to go if I was busy.
The first time the family invited me to go to the mountains with them, Greg declined, after I accepted, and he was overruled.
“You can’t be here alone. Anything can happen, especially with you,” his mother said, and Greg had changed his mind.
There was only one refusal. Once his mother spoke, the law was made, and Greg followed. Hauling around twenty-five pounds of cast was no easy proposition. In the mountains it was more restraining. I’m not sure that isn’t why they wanted Greg to go with them.
Greg didn’t have any ability to store energy. He needed to use it up as quick as it came on him. In the mountains for the first few visits Greg remained fairly inactive. It probably reminded him of being restrained in his hospital bed.
It took him a lot of time to get to the dining room table and even more time to go out around the house to the patio where both breakfast and lunch were served by his Pop.
Even with all the beauty and the rustic nature of our surroundings, Greg wasn’t very happy. I stayed with him, because it’s what I did, when he might need me. Besides being a little grumpy, which didn’t get him anywhere, he was fine. When he took his mid-day nap, Doug and I went out to find the best views.
These would always be some of the best times Doug and I shared. He planned for when Greg would run out of gas and he’d say, “Come on. He’ll be asleep for a couple of hours now. We’ll be back by the time he wakes up.”
Doug liked the mountain. He often stopped as we got to some sight he knew or in some meadow we were passing thru, and he’d say, “Listen!”
It might be a lovely birdsong or a woodpecker pecking away. At different times there were deer watching us from their huddle, or beaver readying a dam by a creek.
There was an abundance of wildlife. The silence was the most incredible thing about the mountains. I’ve always been a fan of silence. We didn’t encounter many two legged animals, but the four legged variety crossed paths with us no matter where we went.
Doug and I did hold hands, we could keep from kissing, and many times when he stopped, it wasn’t to listen or to watch, it was to touch lips and hold one another close. It’s when I got my best look into his passionate blue eyes. They were a slightly lighter shade of blue than Greg’s eyes, sexier too. There wasn’t much to say, so we just kissed.
Doug knew the entire story about me and my love for Greg, but having reassurances that I also felt love for him was what he wanted from me. Doug loved Greg. He’d always lived in Greg’s shadow, but with me he saw a place where he stood on his own.
In a way Doug was more like Greg than he thought. There was the presence of Herbie in both of their lives. All the sexual activity had a way of revolving around Herbie. It had always been that way and it was that way now.
Which brings me to the major toucher of our time. Herbie was totally smitten with Lee and Lee in return was smitten with Herbie. Doug knew it was serious when Herbie stopped coming over to offer him a hand.
Once Greg was out of the hospital, only returning for checkups, we didn’t see Lee anymore. We heard of Herbie and Lee from people who knew them, and they always seemed to be together.
Greg never mentioned it. Doug knew all about it. I thought it was cute. I actually enjoyed not seeing Herbie, although I liked Lee. This was a minor change in my life that only involved my vision, but for Doug and Greg it was big.
It was that awkward age when most of Greg’s friends were turning 18 and making plans for the rest of their lives. Everyone grows up. Friends go their separate ways. Guys meet girls, get married, and stop seeing the guys they grew up with, because many women aren’t about to share their man.
Greg didn’t talk about the past. There’s no way to know if he was giving thought to his future. Being anchored so firmly to the present, he wasn’t giving much thought to anything but getting rid of that cast. It was the bane of his existence. It kept Greg in place for the time being. It also allowed for me to be in place close to him.
As time went on the visits to the mountains saw Greg and me getting out more. As he lost his fear of falling and injuring himself, he was able to get around almost as well as I could. The cast had begun to take a beating, but how can you hurt a cast? One gets too beaten and battered, the doctors replace it.
Each time I went back to the mountains with Greg’s family, I was happy to be there. Not much excitement to distract from the fresh air and natural beauty of a place that didn’t see many humans. That’s to say if you weren’t in love with two brothers who stayed comfortably close to me. As excitement went, they were as good as it gets.
There were other people on the mountain, but they were busy being at one with nature, as were we. Except for on the road, where you might meet another car coming and going every second or third time we were there, we rarely crossed paths with people on foot.
Getting Greg to sit still to listen to nature took work. He was no Doug. They were as different as the city and the country. Greg was being reborn into a mature kid as time passed. His cast was his cocoon. Slowly was coming the day he’d emerge as a butterfly.
He would be one handsome butterfly, might I add. Everyone was going to want to fly with him. He couldn’t wait to taxi down the runway of life so he could find more attention than he was getting now.
For now he was mine alone. There wasn’t even a Herbie around to hold his dick for him. Listening to Greg, talking to him, was pleasant enough. There were no deep conversations. His mind didn’t share what was going on behind his eyes. Most things were played for laughs.
As much time as we spent together, and we were together every day, I don’t know if I knew Greg. I didn’t know what he got out of being the center of attention or how it was for him now that he wasn’t.
He spent months isolated from everyone, and that had to be hard for a guy like Greg, but now what he’d known was pretty much gone. He accepted me as the one person who stuck with him, but at the same time he regarded my feelings for him as excessive.
Any time he got too close to crossing the line that will not be crossed, he told me I was crowding him. I usually saw it coming a little in advance, but I had the antidote for Greg’s moodiness and I didn’t waste a lot of time implementing it. I’d excuse myself to go get a drink or to take a piss and I’d come back later, as in days or weeks later, depending on my moodiness.
Greg would be careful not to piss me off for a while, once I did come back. From time to time he’d mention how damn thin my skin had become.
I wasn’t like any of his other boys. I wasn’t going to pretend I wasn’t what I was. This would have made it way too easy on Greg. He didn’t want to hear that I was gay.
The implications of that were not anything Greg wanted to consider. I didn’t force the issue but I didn’t pretend so that he could relieve his conscience either. What he thought all of those boys were doing jerking him off all those years, who knows.
If a guy’s been jerking you off for more than fifteen minutes, he’s queer for you, or keeping himself in practice. Four or five years removes all doubt about what he’s doing, but some boys will deny they like what they like, even with the evidence in his hand. These boys end up tormenting gay guys, thinking it gives them cover.
The fact Greg let me get so close to him made him nervous. I didn’t need to loose at pool, although I would if it got me what I was after. Greg was sure I was gay, but he definitely wasn’t sure he was gay. He’d thought about being gay and he didn’t like it.
The more our relationship heated up, the more my being gay became an issue. When Greg got his hottest, he got the maddest. The anger was aimed directly at me but it was fired at himself too. You couldn’t miss his active participation in our lusty doings. His anger rarely hit until after he’d got to where he was so passionately heading.
If he became too adamant about how I was taking advantage of his straightness, I’d leave him alone for a few days or longer, but not before I got where I was heading.
These were the most telling of times for me. I wasn’t wise to the ways of the world. What I knew about lust and love came from Greg. As little as I knew, it was plain to see Greg was wrestling with himself. He hated it when he loved it, but he never told me to get lost and not come back.
He knew how I’d react every time he got pissy with me. He took to saying, “Don’t go leaving again either. You know I depend on you.”
I supposes this was easier than, ‘I love you, Martin.’
Greg was in love with me. He hated when I spent time with Doug. He knew Doug was a beautiful guy who never pissed anyone off. He also knew that he could be an insufferable asshole, but his big dick always came to the rescue when he was faced with his shortcomings.
Wanting to be with Greg was plenty real for me. Yes, a really deep conversation about our relationship would have reassured me when there was doubt. In spite of all his fussing, we were lovers. We both knew that.
Perhaps if I delved too deeply into who Greg was, I wouldn’t like him so much, maybe I’d like him even more. There were no easy answers when it came to Greg. At eighteen he wasn’t giving up anything about who he was. I knew he was thinking about it, but he wasn’t talking.
I didn’t ask for too much, and he probably gave up more than he intended to give up, because I didn’t push for more. While insisting he wasn’t gay, all the information I gathered disagreed with his assessment.
I don’t think Greg wanted to be gay, but like many gay men, he felt the feelings he felt and he couldn’t deny them. He’d say, ‘no, no, no,’ as he unfastened his pajamas to make sure I could get at him. It couldn’t have been easy to have so much conflict running around inside of one brain.
He wanted me close and then he would push me away. I doubt Greg knew who he was at this point in his life. I don’t think he thought it was something he needed to decide. He was what he was. What’s to think about?
For me, I was full of pondering. That is not to say I was way ahead of Greg, because I couldn’t have caught Greg if I was jet propelled and he was in his cast. I didn’t know much about anything. I knew what I felt for Greg. That’s to say I knew the intensity of what I felt.
For much of my life I felt nothing. I felt nothing because that was the wise thing for me to feel. It wasn’t a plan or something I set out to do. It became the thing I did. Greg was responsible for igniting passion in me. It was a rude introduction to my feelings. There was no control or understanding at first. Without knowing love I was in love. I rode the wave and tried not to drown.
Once I started going to the mountains with Greg and his family, I wasn’t asked if I was going. Plans were made that included me. I drove Greg but never Doug. Mom came back for Doug before leaving for the weekend.
After I went along a few times, it felt good to go to the mountain. Especially it felt good to be with this family. The place itself was incredible for being so isolated. It was a house not a cabin. It was comfortable inside. There was electricity, a fireplace, a full kitchen, and out back was a patio with a huge brick cooking area.
I was an early riser and on my third trip to the mountain, I got out of bed and eased out of the bedroom so I didn’t disturb Greg, who was sleeping on a recliner near the bed. By that time he had no trouble sleeping there.
I smelled the smoke as soon as I stepped outside. I walked around the house to the patio where Pop had the grill fired up and working overtime. When I say grill, it was a grill laid over stones over a fire built in a huge cooking area. The smell was enough to make me want to grab a piece of whatever it was he was cooking and chow down.
“Morning,” he said happily. “Coffee?”
“Yes, sir,” I said, and his eyebrow raised and he looked at me suspiciously.
Of course he was a colonel and calling him sir could be seen as disrespectful. I was brought up to call all adults ma’am and sir. It wasn’t a good idea. It was the law.
He figured out that I wasn’t pulling his leg and he reached for the huge red pot on the grill. Using a hand towel, he poured the powerful brew in one of the waiting cups, bringing it over to me.
“Cream and sugar is just inside the door if you like.”
“Thank you,” I said, knowing by the smell that this coffee would take some diluting.
I added cream and sugar and went back out and sat in a chair near the grill, watching Pop turn and shift what were pieces of rabbit and huge slices of bacon he cut from a slab of pork beside the grill.
On back of the brick structure, away from the heat, were a line of tomatoes in various stages of ripening. They’d come out of the garden just below the patio and the tomato plants were as tall as I was. By mid summer we were eating fresh tomatoes with every meal.
“You like it here?” Pop asked.
“Yes, sir. It’s beautiful. I like the wildlife. I like the fresh air,” I said. “Doug likes to take me exploring.”
Before long we were engaged in a conversation about the mountain, the house, his work, and a few dozen other things. I suppose it was a little past six when I went down to the patio and the next arrival came at about eight.
Doug was rubbing the sleep out of his eyes, grabbing a cup, he poured his own coffee, after saying something that sounded like, “Good morning,” to his father. He moved a chair over next to mine when he came back from making his coffee the right color.
“You’re up early,” Doug said.
“Can’t help myself. I don’t want to miss anything.”
“You tasted that rabbit?” Doug asked.
“Yeah, I had a piece and some bacon and sliced tomato.”
“That rabbit is killer. Pop knows his way around the grill.”
“I’d say,” I said.
By that time I’d had several pieces of bacon and some rabbit before I realized I was eating Bugs Bunny. For some reason everything tasted incredibly good up there. Before long Doug and I were served more bacon along with fried eggs and sliced tomatoes.
I’d already eaten and I was still eating. We ended up on one of the trails near the house an hour later, and by the time we got back from following several of the trails, we mad it back to the house to being eating fish Pop caught while we were hiking. The grill was still hot from breakfast.
Mom brought us drinks filled with ice and there was potato salad and slaw.
“I’ve got some green bean salad in the fridge,” Mom said, as if we hadn’t seen food in some days.
“Greg, you want some corn bread. I’ll put some butter on it for you.”
“Yeah, mom, that’d be great with the fish. Don’t give them any. I won’t have enough.”
“Oh, I don’t think you’ll go hungry, dear.”
“I’ll take a piece of that corn bread. Martin wants two pieces,” Doug said.
“One’s fine,” I said.
“Don’t give mine away,” Pop said. “That will give this fish just the flavor I’m looking for. Is there any tea?”
“Yeah, I’ve got a whole bottle. Anyone else want tea? This is my last trip to the kitchen.”
None of us went away hungry. I’d never been better fed or happier. This was a good place to be and a good time to be here.
It was the kind of food and company that complemented each other in ways I didn’t know was possible, and the weather was perfect for outdoor eating and for some reason bugs hadn’t discovered this spot yet.