This new chapter has been a long time coming. I hope everyone who reads this sends me some feedback. My e-mail has been rather thin lately, and I'm hoping for a full mailbox.
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The afternoon came fast, for me anyway. I wanted to stay there in my bed with my newfound love. The phone was ringing and it needed answering. I gave Jaye a quick peck on the cheek as I slid out of bed.
"Hello?" I sleepily answered.
"Hi is this Fred?" the voice responded.
"Yeah. Who is this?"
"This is Jaye's mother, is he there?"
"Oh, Hi, Mrs. Cranston, yeah he's here, I'll go get him."
"Don't worry about it, just let him know that I'll be in Ithaca
for a few hours. So he will have to use his key to get in, if he
remembered it."
"Okay, I'll tell him."
"Thanks, Fred. Oh and I hope I get to meet you soon, Jaye has been
telling me alot about you." She said with a tone of mischief in
her voice.
"Nothing bad I hope." My face felt hot from blushing.
"Don't worry, it's all been good. So what is it about this project
that has him all excited?"
"Project? Oh that! We paired up for an English assignment with
creative writing. He has the ideas, and I have the knack for
words."
"Sounds like you two are a good pair. Good luck with it. I have to
go, but make sure you tell him about me being gone to Ithaca."
"Sure thing, Mrs. Cranston"
"Bye"
"Bye" I said as I hung up.
"Jaye, honey, wake up," I called to him. "That was your mom, she
had to go to Ithaca for a while, and that you'll have to use your
key to got in. That is, if you remembered it."
"Lemme check. Yep right here." He jingled his keys in front of his
face.
"Good, she also said she wanted to meet me." Jaye blushed as I
spoke. "What?" I asked with a chuckle.
"Did she say anything else?"
"No, just that you were really excited about our English project
together"
"Phew," he feigned wiping sweat from his brow.
"What is it? You're acting like you almost got caught at
something."
"Oh nothing." he paused, "Well, she already knows how I feel about
you, I think she was trying to get some information without
actually asking." He said with a pouty look on his face.
"She knows?" I asked, terror flashed across my face.
"Yeah, sorry I didn't tell you. She saw a note I was writing to
you and sort of conned it out of me. She's glad I found someone,
even if that someone happens to be a guy."
I tackled him onto the bed and embraced him in a bear hug. My worst fear now belayed. I kissed him and said a near silent, "Thank you."
I pulled back a little bit to gaze at his entire face, then
asked, "When were you planning on telling me that she knew?"
He smirked. "I wasn't, she was just going to say something when
you came over tonight."
"Oh?" I asked.
"Yeah, she wanted you there for dinner tonight so she could meet
you."
"Dinner? Sure, I never pass up free food."
An hour went by, while we actually set about to working on our assignment. My mom came home, asking if we were ready to take Jaye home yet. We went to Jaye's place off in the wilderness of the Brooktondale/Slaterville area. Jaye sat in the back seat, I sat in the front. For the whole fifteen minute trip, Jaye sat on the edge of his seat with his arm reaching around to hold me. It felt good to be able to show even that little bit of affection in front of my mom. Just days before I had thought that she would be furious at the mere thought of her oldest son being gay. Things had changed so rapidly that I was expecting it to be a dream, or some twisted practical joke.
Jaye's place was average looking. Two stories, white with green shutters. There was a short driveway leading to a large gravel spot for parking. At first I thought it was a two family building, but I found out it was just his family that was there. Jaye let himself in as he had expected he would need to do. I waved to my mom, to let her know we got in alright. As she drove off, she yelled for me to call her when I wanted to come home.
I was given the grand tour of the place. As I always do, when in a new place, I asked Jaye where the bathroom was at. He showed me the way to the small one on the first floor, then led me upstairs to the large one. Then we headed for his room.
"Here's the guest room, you might have to sleep here," Jaye said,
pointing to a rather empty bedroom.
"Why would I have to sleep there?"
"I still don't know if my mom would let us share my room."
"Here's my room." He motioned me in.
"Damn!" I said, "Your room looks twice the size of mine."
"So."
"I just didn't expect it to be so big."
"I thought the same thing about a few other things, myself," he
chuckled.
"Oooh, you're gonna get it."
I tackled him to his bed, tickling him. He pulled me down and kissed me deeply, in an effort to get me to stop. It worked, but as soon as I stopped, he reached in between us and started tickling me. Still on top of him, I grabbed his arms and pinned them to his sides, then nibbled on his neck. Then I kissed him on the lips again, releasing my grip on his arms to wrap my arms around him. I rolled him on top of me, allowing him the upper hand in our wrestling match of love.
We heard the door downstairs. It was Jaye's mom. We ran down the stairs to greet her. She had a carload of groceries, so, like the good little boy my mom raised me to be, I helped unload the car. It's not like I had to, and I wasn't trying to earn any brownie points, it was simply the way I was brought up.
"Even if they don't appreciate it, at least you are showing that
you're willing to help." My mother's words tumbled through my
mind.
Jaye's mom was surprised when she noticed I was helping. She mumbled something to Jaye, to which he responded only with a shrug.
"Fred, you don't have to do that, we can take care of it." Jaye
said.
"We're almost finished anyway, that's the last bag to go in."
"Oh."
"See, and your mom didn't even have to make a second trip out
here."
"What? Are you trying to impress her?"
"Well, I am dating her youngest boy. But, no, I'm not doing this
to impress her, it's just habit for me."
"Habit or not, I'm impressed just by the way you have made my baby
happy. He's been sulking something awful these past few weeks,
that is," then she turned to me, "until he met up with you, Fred."
"Mom," Jaye said as he rolled his eyes, "we met back in sixth
grade."
We were all sitting at the dining room table now, the grocery bags still on the kitchen counter.
"So, Fred, how long have you known that you were gay?" She asked.
"Uh, uh, uh, well I just started accepting the idea about a year
ago. Now that I think of it, how did you know?" I was looking at
her sort of dumbfounded.
"Jaye and I were having one of our heart to heart talks around the
time that school started back up." she paused, "He was telling me
about you, but at first I thought he was talking about a girl."
Jaye cut in, "Then I told her about the DC trip. She still thought
I was talking about a girl. She asked me if that was why I was
moping around about, I told it was then let it drop."
Mrs Cranston picked it up from there, "A couple of days later, I
found a note he had written to you in his laundry. That led to
another one of them talks, at my urging."
By this time I was really starting to blush, not knowing how much Jaye had told her about the trip.
"So you mean to tell me that you've known about some of the
problems between Jaye and me?"
"Yes, I also know about that little story you told him." she said.
"Between her and Tara, they finally convinced me that it really was
just a story." Jaye chimed in.
"But, how could you have known it was just a smokescreen story?" I
asked.
"Call it mother's intuition." she replied.
"So does it bother you that Jaye is bi or gay, or whatever?"
"Hmmm, not really, not now, anyway. It did at first, mostly
because I was worried about him getting into fights and whatnot,
but I have faith in him. I'm just happy that he doesn't feel like
he has to hide it from me anymore."
"Fred, I've been wanting to ask you this; how do you deal with it
at school?" Jaye asked.
"I try not to, I'm not exactly as self-confident as I make myself
out to be. That's why it was so hard for me to tell you how I
felt. I mean, I really didn't understand how I truly felt about
you, until we ended up avoiding each other. I had to get Tara to
play Cupid for me."
"What? When did this happen?"
"Oh, a few weeks ago, mom. It wasn't as bad as it sounds; just
that Fred and I sort of lost touch with our friendship, all
because we were afraid of what the other might be thinking." Jaye
said.
"Well, Fred, just so you know, if you ever need to talk about
anything, even if it's something you don't want to talk out with
your mom, you can always talk to me. Oh, and one more thing," she
said, "you don't have to call me Mrs. Cranston. Call me Delia, or
mom, that's what I am to most of my kids' friends, a mom away from
mom." she giggled at her little joke.
"Thanks, Delia, I appreciate it." I said.
"I believe you two had some homework to do," she said, "so while
I'm fixing dinner, you two can work on it."
"Okay," Jaye said, "can Fred spend the night, too?"
"Sure, let me call his mother to let her know."
"Thanks, Delia. By the way, her name is Andrea."
Delia dialed the phone, and let my mom know that is was okay for me to spend the night, then asked if I could. After everything was set, she went back to cooking dinner, while Jaye and I finished up our homework.
Dinner was fantastic, just the three of us. When we were finished, Jaye was sure to make me stay at the table as it was cleared. He was embarrassed that I wanted to help clean up. After that, we went up to his room for some private time together.
"Don't you boys be loud up there." Delia said.
"We won't," Jaye and I said in unison.
"So, Jaye, what do we do now?" I asked.
"I don't know, we can hang out up here for now."
"Turn on the stereo, I want some tunes." I said
"Okay, we'll listen to this." He waved a tape in the air. "I like
this song."
/ You are an obsession /
/ Yes my obsession /
"Hey I know that song. It's 'Obsession' by Animotion." I said.
"Sure is, now, do you know why I like it?"
/ Who do want me to be /
/ To make you sleep with me? /
"Nah, not at all." I joked.
"C'mere," he said.
I walked over to his bed and sat next to him. He had a wide grin on his face. He put one arm around my shoulders and the other across my lap, and pulled in close to me.
"Thank you," he said.
"For what?"
"Just for being here, and being patient with me." He choked up as
he said it.
"Babe," I said as I stroked his hair, "I am very much in love with
you. If I had to wait for years, to be with you, I would." Then I
lifted him up to face me, wiped away his tears, and said, "When we
were on the DC trip, I knew then that I had a crush on you. My
little fib about the prostitution bit, was just used to see how
you would react to me. For a moment I really wanted that twenty
bucks just to further the story, but I knew my conscience would
not have let me take it."
"Really?" He sniffed back some tears.
"Yes. At the time I thought that would be the closest I could get
to something meaningful to me. Then these last few weeks..."
"When we drifted away from each other?" he asked.
"Yeah, I thought you didn't want to see me again."
"I thought the same thing."
"I was trying to hide my feelings for you, because I had realized
that I really loved you, and wasn't sure if you felt the same. My
heart was nearly broken when you didn't try to communicate at all
with me." I said.
"That's what made me realize how I felt about you, when we stopped
talking. Then when Tara first tried to tell me how you felt, I
thought she was just teasing me. Then she gave me your note at
swim practice, that's when everything fell into place."
"I tried very hard to keep from getting my hopes up when I wrote
that, but it was one of those last ditch efforts and I did my best
to be as sincere as I could without being sappy." I said
"Thank you." he whispered.
"Your welcome, but why are you thanking me?"
"For not being afraid of being honest with me."
Now, it was my turn to get teary eyed. I laid back on the bed, pulled him down to lay his head on my chest, and just stroked his hair. We both sobbed quietly, they were tears of relief. We were having an emotional talk and our feelings had just cut loose.
We must have cried ourselves to sleep, because I realized that it was two hours since laid down with Jaye on my chest. He was semi-conscious when I nudged him. He squeezed me tighter when he noticed I was awake.
"Oooh, careful, dear, I have to get to the bathroom. We don't need
a wet bed."
He giggled, looked into my eyes and said, "I love you." Then he
kissed me. "Okay, you can go now." He giggled again.
I made it there and back into the room. The light was on, but Jaye wasn't. I didn't notice the when I passed it, but there was a light coming from downstairs. They must have heard me walk to the stairwell, because I heard Jaye and his mom call for me.
"Fred, come on down, Jaye's down here."
When I got to where they were in the family room, I asked, "Dear
why are you down here?"
"Oh mom just wanted to talk to me."
"I think you need to hear this, too, Fred." said Delia.
"Hear what? Is there something wrong?" I asked.
"Oh no, not at all. I just feel concerned about you two, that's
all."
"Yeah, mom is worried that we might get into fights at school."
Jaye said.
"Mom," I said, "don't worry. Jaye and I have quite a huge clique
of girls that we hang around with. If anything, guys at school
think we're studs or something."
"I guess you're right," she chuckled. "I just want you guys to be
safe. Please don't come out at school, being gay is nothing to be
ashamed of, but there many idiots out there that think it is. Just
be careful who knows."
"I know I will, I know for a fact that even my ex can't be
trusted." I said.
"What do you mean." Jaye asked.
"It's a long story, I'm in too good of a mood to go into it. Right
now, I just want to concentrate on us."
"Good for you, Fred. You and Jaye can sleep together, I know you
two were wondering about that. Just don't keep me awake all
night."
"We won't," Jaye said.
With that, we made our way back up to his room, got undressed and snuggled close under the blankets.
"Fred?"
"Yeah?"
"Why me?"
"Why you what?"
"Why do you want to go out with me? I'm not special or anything."
"Jaye...You are special to me. I have always considered you my
best and closest friend. It means even more to me now, to be able
to have romance between us."
"Me too."
I draped my arm over him, pulled him closer and fell asleep. I was content to hold him protectively by me. This was a moment I wanted to last forever. I had even dreamed about holding him close that night.
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Isn't that great, Jaye's mother and Fred's mother both accept the boys for who they are.
I don't know if this is my last installment or not, I left it so I can continue or leave it as is. It all depends on what I hear from my fans. My e-mail: wizkid24@yahoo.com Yahoo pager: wizkid24 AIM: emeraldjay and ICQ: 7554513. I hope to hear from you all soon.