Coming to Terms Chapter 1
Coming to Terms Chapter 1 By John Yager
This is the first of five chapters. This story contains descriptions of both straight and gay sexual acts. If such stories are not to your liking or if you are not allowed access to such material under the laws of the area in which you live, please exit now.
I want to express continued thanks to Andrew, who has again done proofing and editing for me.
All stories which I have posted on NIFTY can be found by looking under my name in their Prolific Authors lists.
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"Gees, John," my girlfriend yelled from the bathroom, "put your reeking shorts in the dirty clothes!"
"Sorry, Barb," I called back, remembering too late the rules we'd agreed on. "Are you about ready to go?"
"Yeah, five minutes."
We were off for one of our frequent dinners with our closest friends. The eight of us had been buds since our freshman year in college. We'd all been in the same orientation group, a fact which later became the basis for one of our more persistent jokes.
Billy, Stan, Jason and I had all joined the same fraternity and the girls, Melissa, Joan, Sharon and Barb, had joined the same sorority. Over the following four years we'd all dated around and at one time or another I'd had serious crushes on both Sharon and Barb. The same thing was true of Jason and during our junior year we'd done a lot of crying on each other's shoulders. It began to sound a lot like a plot for a soap opera.
As things worked out after graduation, not so much by plan as by circumstance, we all ended up living in Memphis within two or three miles of one other. I say it wasn't by plan, but the eight of us had become very close and we all agree that there was a strong psychological propensity toward staying together. When job opportunities or graduate school options developed which allowed us to remain close, we all opted to do so.
By the time we were two years out of college the pairing off had occurred. I had seriously dated Barb during our senior year in college and it had become a sexual relationship over spring break that year. It seemed a natural step for us to move in together after graduation.
I'm working for a medical research company and they are paying for me to work on a master's degree in Biomedical Engineering at the University of Tennessee's Memphis campus. Barb is working on an MFA degree in writing at Ole Miss, were we'd all been undergraduate students so, in reality, we aren't quite together all the time. She leaves for Oxford early most Tuesday mornings and doesn't get back until Friday afternoon.
While in Oxford Barb shares an apartment with three other former sorority sisters who are also in graduate programs there.
She has a weekend job here in Memphis and she is with me from Friday evening until early Tuesday morning each week. I have a very nice apartment off Poplar Avenue in Germantown and she has a relatively easy drive back and forth from here to Oxford.
I won't go into the details about what the others in our little group are doing, but will say that we are all involved in interesting and challenging things.
So far as the pairing off is concerned, Jason and Sharon are living together, not far from Barb and me. Melissa and Joan are sharing an apartment off Park Avenue near the Botanical Gardens and Billy and Stan are living in a great old house they bought together just off Walnut Grove Road.
Needless to say, the eight of us are together a lot, almost every weekend. Since I'm alone from Tuesday to Friday, I see a lot of the other guys. Stan and Billy always have some project going on at the house and I sometimes go by to help when I'm not overloaded with work and classes.
Also about a year ago, Stan and Billy got serious about getting back in shape, something we'd all discussed but not really done anything about since leaving college. They finished off a nice area in their basement and bought some good equipment, a bench and free weights and, a while later, the top of the line Bowflex. They put a big mirror on one wall and eventually added a sauna and a full bath with a big shower. I guess it goes without saying that they both have excellent jobs and as a two income household can pretty much afford to do whatever they want with the house. They can also afford to travel quite a bit, and do.
We kidded them about the BS Health Club, but the truth is the rest of us are a little envious. It wasn't long before Jason and I took Billy and Stan up on their invitation to use their exercise equipment. We couldn't help seeing the difference it was making in their physiques and we didn't want to be left behind.
None of us had been real jocks in college, but the other guys and I had played a little football and some basketball for our fraternity intramural teams and generally managed to stay in shape with sports and occasional trips to the university gym. But, as I said, Jason and I didn't want to be the two couch potatoes, so we decided to follow the other guys' lead and whip ourselves into shape.
We began regular workouts, first just on Wednesday evenings each week, but after the spring semester started and my class schedule changed so I had more time, we expanded it to two sessions a week on Tuesday and Thursday evenings. Barb was routinely gone those nights anyway so it was easy for me.
Sharon was home but I think as soon as she saw the improvement the workouts were making in Jason's body, she was glad to see him take two evenings a week to work out. Besides, she, Melissa and Joan often used one or both of those evenings to do some girl thing together, so everybody was happy.
Barb was quick to compliment me on my own improving body, which was a kick for me and encouraged me to work all that much harder.
The other big change in Stan and Billy's household in December of our first year in Memphis was the arrival of Boy, their Chocolate Lab. He was a pup when they got him, soon after they bought the house, but over the next year he turned into a big, affectionate, but well mannered dog and he became the sort of unofficial mascot for our entire circle of friends. Everywhere we went that dogs were welcome, Boy came along.
Over the year leading up to our memorable weekend together a lot had gone on in our lives and some even bigger changes were in the making. For starters, it began to be apparent that the relationship between Melissa and Joan had become more than just friendly. They were increasingly affectionate with each other and more demonstrative in the way they spoke, using pet names and that sort of thing. We all more or less accepted that they had become lovers so when they admitted as much to us over the Christmas holidays it was neither a shock or a surprise.
We all assured them that their sexual orientation made no difference to our friendships and that our little circle of eight was as secure and loving as ever. I guess our generation has a more relaxed attitude toward sexual orientation than our parents' generation had and it really wasn't any big deal. I think, if anything, we were all just relieved to have it out in the open.
One evening as the eight of us we were discussing Melissa and Joan's new status as a couple, I made some comment about how psychological studies seemed to suggest that bisexuality seemed to be more or less normal for most people anyway. If that were true, it was perfectly understandable that two women, or two men, for that matter, could find sexual expression of their love for one another an expected and beautiful thing. I guess it was a bit of pious sermonizing on my part, but I did believe it and saying it did seem to make the girls more comfortable with their revelation.
Alone, later that night, Barb and I talked about it and agreed we really believed what we'd said in the larger group. It wasn't just a bunch of platitudes expressed to make Melissa and Joan feel more at ease. It really was what we believed.
The following Tuesday evening Jason and I were at Billy and Stan's for our usual workout and the four of us guys kicked it around even more.
"Did you mean what you said, John, about bisexuality being more or less normal?" Billy asked me as we were doing our rounds with the weights.
"Yeah, I did," I said as I spotted Jason, who was doing bench presses. "If sexual orientation is some sort of spectrum with one end representing a completely heterosexual person and the other end representing a completely homosexual person," I went on, "it suggests that a few people may be at one extreme end or the other and completely and irrevocably straight or gay in their orientation. But the rest of us, I'd suspect the vast majority, are floating someplace along that line."
"Floating?" Jason asked.
"I think so," I said. "The studies I've read seem to suggest that, for many people, maybe a large majority of people, you could move from time to time, someplace along the spectrum. If you say the spectrum is from one to ten, most of us are someplace between a four and an eight, which would put you in the bisexual camp. The studies I've read suggest a huge majority of people are grouped right about the middle of the scale."
"But are you also saying a person might move back and forth along the scale?" Billy asked.
"Sure," I said, but then as I thought about it I wondered if I really believed that. "I think so, anyway."
"So somebody could be a 'Two' and closer to the strictly heterosexual end for a while, and then, due to changes in their life, find them self a Six' or an 'Eight,' and leaning more toward a homosexual orientation," Billy stated.
"I think so," I said, "but, guys, I'm just speculating."
"I read someplace that psychologists are now suggesting a different model, one with two parallel lines," Jason chimed in. "It suggests you can move back and forth between greater or lesser straight attractions on one line and at the same time be moving in the same or opposite direction on the gay line."
"That seems too complicated," Billy laughed. "I'm for one line with straight and gay at opposite ends."
A week after the girls came out to the rest of us, Billy and Stan did the same. I have to admit that I wasn't surprised when the girls told us they were a couple, but the guys' announcement was a bit of a shock. They were such regular guys and in no way met any of my own stereotypes of what gay men were like. I clearly needed to readjust my thinking.
Things went along as usual. Jason and I showed up each Tuesday and Thursday evening for our workouts with Billy and Stan. We used the sauna and shower together and more or less took things in stride. They were still our closest male friends and I guess Jason and I both figured that what they did together in the privacy of their own bedroom was their own business, just as what Barb and I did, or Jason and Sharon did, was our own business.
Through those weeks Jason and I were never alone together to discuss it without Billy and Stan around so we just went on as before, still relaxed around each other and still the best of friends.
In early April, Billy and Stan had to go away for a week to a business meeting, and asked the rest of us if we'd help out with Boy. They didn't want to put him in a kennel and since he regarded the other six of us as his extended family anyway, it was not a problem for him if we traded off and took Billy and Stan's usual roles for a few days. Since I was alone anyway for three of the nights the guys were going to be away, I just offered to stay at their house those nights if some combination of the others could help out the rest of the time.
Billy and Stan left on Sunday afternoon to drive to St. Louis, where their meetings were being held. That night and a couple of times on Monday and Tuesday, Melissa and Joan went by to feed Boy and let him out into the fenced back yard for a run.
On Tuesday after work, I went by, prepared to spend the next three nights. I had taken some food along and made myself dinner while Boy ran around the back yard checking out his empire. I'd just finished eating and had fed the pooch when Jason showed up for our workout. For the first time since they'd come out to us, he and I had a chance to talk alone about Billy and Stan's relationship.
"I really am okay with it," Jason said as we were working out together. "But I do find myself wondering about what they do together in bed."
"There aren't all that many options," I grinned.
"Well, as many as Sharon and I, or you and Barb have, unless you two are into something I don't know about." He gave me a quizzical glance and I just shrugged. "Seriously, John, what do you think Billy and Stan get up to?"
"Well, Jason, you know as much as I do about gay sex," I said. "I guess it comes down to manual, oral and anal and a few inventive combinations of the three."
"There are toys."
"So, are you and Sharon into toys?"
"No, you dork, I mean the guys."
"Well, why don't you ask them?"
"Maybe I will," he said, completing his set. I stretched out on the bench and he moved around to spot me.
I had done my first set and was relaxing a minute before starting in again when Jason sort of dropped the ball by asking, "do you think they fuck?"
"Shit, Jason, how the hell should I know?"
"But if they do, you don't have any problem with it?" He was looking at me with a strange expression on his face and I felt as if under all the assurances we'd all given Billy and Stan, as well as Melissa and Joan, that Jason was more bothered by their admissions than he'd previously let on.
"No, man, I don't. I mean, it really is between them, right?"
"I guess so, but they seem like such regular guys. It really does get me that we could have known them so long and never suspected." He looked down at me as I stretched out on the bench and prepared to start my second set. "And they were gay all the time and we never even suspected."
"Yeah, I guess," I said, but didn't want to try talking while I was doing my presses.
"Do you think they could have gone either way? I mean, could they have been straight if they'd hooked up with the right girls?"
It was a little while before I tried to respond, but I did look up at him and from my vantage point on the bench, I discovered that I was staring right up the legs of his shorts. His crotch was covered by the webbed pouch of his jockstrap and little beads of sweat clung to the fine hairs which spread over his upper thighs. Somehow I couldn't get my eyes to move.
When I finished my set and got my breath, I said, "Look, Jason, some of the stuff Barb and I do is a little kinky and I'd bet you and Sharon get into some crazy shit, too."
"Well, yeah . . ." he grinned.
"Would you feel funny talking about it if someone asked you what you two did in bed?"
"Maybe," he said and I could see he was thinking.
"How would you feel if I asked you about some really private stuff?"
"Well," he said, waited a moment while the wheels turned, and then said, "I guess if you asked me about stuff between Sharon and me, I'd be okay with it."
"Yeah?"
"Yeah."
"You're sure?"
"Well, ask, damn it, John," he snarled. "If I don't want to answer I'll say so."
"Okay," I said, setting up so I could get my eyes off his crotch. "Have you ever had anal intercourse with Sharon?"
"Oh, gees, John!"
"Well, it's a fair question. You said you might ask Billy and Stan."
"Yeah, I know I did."
"So how about answering?"
"Would you tell me if you and Barb did that?"
"Yeah, Jason, I would. You're one of my best friends and as long as I had your assurance that you weren't going to tell anyone else, including Sharon, I'd tell you."
"Well, do you?"
"If I answer, will you fess up, too?"
"Yeah," he said, looking like I'd backed him into a corner.
"Okay then," I said. "Yeah, Barb and I have done it."
"So did you both really get off on it?"
"That's another question, buddy," I grinned. "First it's your turn to answer me."
"Well, yeah," he said, looking a little sheepish. "I talked Sharon into it but we only tried it once and I didn't really get very far. She said it hurt too much and I stopped."
"Did you like it, as far as it went?"
"Yeah," he grinned. "It was fucking hot." he was watching me intently and I knew he wanted me to tell him more.
"We like it, both Barb and me."
"Holy shit, John, how in hell did you get her to go along with it?"
"Well, I just started by playing with her ass while we were fucking in the usual way. She was getting off on it and I worked my finger in. She started humping my cock on the in-strokes and my fingers on the out-strokes. I got her lubed up and worked my finger in deeper and then when she relaxed, I worked a second finger in. I guess the secret is just taking it slow."
"Oh, man," he said and I could see his eyes were glazed over just thinking about it. "I wonder if I could do that with Sharon."
"Probably," I grinned, knowing I had him where I wanted him. "So you think it sounds hot."
"Yeah, fucking hot," he said.
"So, Jason, if you can get off on the idea of fucking Sharon in the ass, why do you find the idea of two guys doing it so different?"
He looked at me for about a minute before he admitted to himself as well as to me that maybe there wasn't all that much difference after all. "I guess I see what you mean," he said.
I stretched out on the bench for my final set and looked up the leg of his shorts again. Why had I never done that before? I asked myself.
"So," he grinned, "I guess you're going to tell me sucking cock is just like eating a girl's pussy."
"I hear cock is a hell of a lot cleaner than snatch," I grinned.
"Oh, gees, John!"
We left it at that, finished our workout and sat for a while in the sauna before hitting the shower. Being naked with Jason was nothing new, but it had begun to take on new meaning that night.
On Thursday night Jason was back and we worked out alone again. It was warm and we didn't bother with our T-shirts. I found I really enjoyed looking at Jason's increasingly toned torso as we did our routine and lying on the bench again with him spotting me and me looking up the legs of his shorts was even more arousing than it had been on Tuesday. I also noticed when I spotted for him that Jason was checking me out pretty good, too.
To be continued.