BACK BY POPULAR DEMAND
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I think a much needed break from writing - and from Alex and Ryan in particular - has done me the world of good, and I'm pretty happy again with the way this story is going. So, in a moment of inspiration, I have hammered out this final chapter, despite all my dire pronouncements about ending the story for good. So, here it is, the last part. Read this, and I hope it will be a satisfactory continuation to by far the most popular story I've ever written. For those who are seeking them, and can't find them in the absence of my website, my other stories are: Mark and Josh (Beginnings), Copier Guy (Beginnings) and New to this State (High School).
P.S. I'm reopening the whole "y'all" can of worms again, but I stand by the use Alex makes of it, so please, please, please don't email me to say you don't use it that way! I know people who do, ok?
DISCLAIMER
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This is a work of fiction; any resemblance to persons living or dead is entirely coincidental. The author asserts all legal and moral rights (copyright (c) 2004 - comments@ardveche.co.uk) to this work and you may not copy it or transmit it in any way except in its entirety and with this disclaimer. This story features descriptions of sex between adult males:
- if such material is prohibited in your jurisdiction, please DO NOT READ ON, - if you're under the legal age to read such material, please DO NOT READ ON, - if you don't like, or are offended by such material, please DO NOT READ ON.
Now, if everyone who is still here is meant to be here or at least aware they shouldn't be, let's get on with it. All comments are welcome and gratefully received (email them to comments@ardveche.co.uk).
EDUCATING ALEX XIII
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My grandfather's speech perceptibly lightened the mood around the dinner table. It was as though we had all known there was something hanging over us, but nobody had wanted to be the first to speak about it. Apart from a slight silence on my father's part, though, the rest of the meal was perfectly pleasant - he knew he was outnumbered and had decided to keep his peace. Otherwise, conversation was light and bantering and a number of questions were asked about Alex, nothing too probing or personal, just my family getting to know more about the man who was soon to be one of them (God help him). Other than that, dinner passed pretty much uneventfully, which was a tremendous relief.
After I helped my mother wash up I made my excuses and went to bed, for an early night, I felt like I could sleep for a month. As it turned out, I slept until eleven the following morning and by the time I got up, it was, once again, to an empty house. I moped around the place, making myself some toast and talking to myself (ahem) and then returned to my 'bedroom' to take stock of my belongings and prepare for the trip to Alex's house. I had pretty much prepared for the trip to England, which was to last months, but for some reason I agonized over what to pack for this few days with him and his family. Desperate to make a good first impression? Of course!
When I was finally happy with my possessions I was, once more, at a loose end. So, with nothing better to do I donned my coat and went for a walk around the neighborhood, clear my head, say goodbye to the old place before setting off on the biggest, and scariest, journey of my life.
My mother drove me to the airport alone, my father having said goodbye to me at the house (and he even shook my hand) after I had managed to extricate myself from a tearful sister. So, all in all, a more fond farewell than I had been anticipating from my family, I guess my grandfather really did make his point understood. I sat in silence with my mother in the terminal, neither one knowing what to say to the other until my flight was called and my mother kissed my cheek and pressed an envelope into my hand.
"Your father and I wanted you to have this, Ryan. We'll both miss you."
"Thanks, mom, I'll miss you guys too."
"No you won't, you'll be too busy enjoying England."
"Maybe." I said with a small, weak smile.
"I'm proud of you, Ryan."
"I know, mom, but they're calling my flight again, I have to go."
"Yes, of course." Was that the beginnings of tears?
"I love you, mom."
"I know. I love you too, son." She was definitely starting to cry now, I couldn't remember when I'd last seen her do so. "Now go!"
I boarded the plane, stowed the luggage I was taking to Alex's place and took my seat. Unbidden, tears began to well in my eyes again - I seemed to be spending a lot of my life sitting on planes crying lately. Is this a positive step in expressing my emotions or the first in the slow downward spiral to being a complete flake? Probably the latter. With a deep sigh, I pulled myself together and tried to concentrate on the book I'd brought with me for the flight. Surprisingly, I managed, which if nothing else is a tribute to the author's skill because the next thing I was conscious of was the pilot announcing our imminent arrival. Of course, if you asked me what I'd read I might not know in any detail. Oops.
So here I was, my first ever time south of the Mason-Dixon line. I was trying to think of something I knew about these states that hadn't come from 'Deliverance', 'In The Heat Of The Night' or 'Mississippi Burning'. I felt hugely ignorant, here was I about to leave for another country entirely and yet a large and important part of my own was all but unknown to me. Still, the terminal seemed harmless enough as I joined the throng; no overweight sheriffs in mirrored sunglasses, no obvious slack-jawed yokels. I retrieved my backpack in something of a daze, listening to the accents around me when I was jolted back to reality.
"Help y'all with that?" The sexy drawl, the wildly overplayed accent, it could only be one person, the only person whose voice ever made all the hairs on the back of my neck stand up.
"Alex!" I squawked spinning around to face him and grabbing him in a fierce hug. I had missed him so much in the short space we'd been apart.
"God I missed you, Ry." He said to my neck, echoing my thoughts. "Wanna ease up a little though? I can hardly breathe."
"Not as much as I missed you." I replied.
"I'll fight you for it." He said with a laugh, a laugh that once again I felt far more than I heard.
"Nah, you'd win, you big ape."
"Well, buddy, you just blew your ride!" He said, releasing me with a rueful shake of his head.
"I can pay you for it." I shot back, dopey grin plastered on my face, just so happy to see him again.
"In kind?" He asked, cocking an eyebrow as he shouldered my pack.
"Why, Mr Hayes! I'm shocked, what kind of girl do you take me for?" I demanded in what I thought was a pretty fair impersonation of Scarlett O'Hara.
"Jeez, Ryan, don't, that was painful."
"What?" I asked aggrieved.
"C'mon, Yankee, let's git outta here." Was his reply, in a far more convincing accent than mine.
"Was that meant to be Yosemite Sam?" I asked, mockingly, loving that we had slipped so comfortably back into our usual banter.
"Don't make me hurt you, rabbit." He grinned and shoved me in the direction of the exit. I cracked up. As ever, it took him about a month to find his in the lot but eventually we piled into the front seats and just kinda sat grinning foolishly at one another.
"Hello." I said.
"Hello." He replied, reaching for my hand and pulling me toward him. "God, I so wanted to do this as soon as I saw you." And, so saying, he kissed me, long and slow - and it was wonderful, it was a homecoming. It felt so good, I wanted it never to end, to be back in his sure strong embrace and to feel him so close to me again made the separation almost worth it for the feeling of the reunion. Almost.
"Hello." I murmured again, as we parted, my hand resting on his arm.
"Hello." He smiled that sad little smile of his that always makes me want to take him home and look after him.
"Hello."
"You've said that already." His smile broadened.
"So have you."
"Fair point." We kissed again. "I'm so happy to see you, Ry."
"Of course you are." Once again my knee-jerk flippancy when I should have been trying to express my deep emotions to the single most important person in my life.
"Who'd believe that big head'd fit in such a small car?" Came the wry response, followed by a wink and another grin as I opened my mouth to apologize.
"It's why you love me." I answered with a blush.
"Part of it." Alex's tendency to suddenly reply seriously to my quips had always been able to throw me. The mercurial way his mood could apparently flip-flop like that made him unpredictable, something I'd never really liked in anyone before him.
"So, lovely though this parking space is, shouldn't we make a move?" I asked, as a way of changing the subject.
"Yeah, I guess."
"You guess?" Not the enthusiasm I had expected. "Well, I know I want to meet the people responsible for producing you!"
"They can't wait to meet you either." He chewed on his lower lip and looked away, a nervous habit I'd learned to recognize as meaning there was something on his mind that he didn't want to tell me.
"What's up, handsome?" I asked, touching his chin and raising his eyes to mine again.
"Um..."
"Alex...?"
"Um..."
"Ok, no more 'ums', out with it, what's the problem?"
"Ry, the, um, the talk I was gonna have with my folks?" He paused and I nodded as realization of where this was going washed over me. He looked at me sidelong and the next sentence came in a rush. "Well, I kinda didn't get around to it."
"Uhuh. Which part? The coming out or the commitment?" I tried very hard to keep my voice calm, level and reasonable.
"Um, sorta all of it." He had the decency to not be able to meet my gaze.
"Just slipped your mind?" I was being unfair, and I knew it, it's not easy coming out to your parents, God knows, and coming out at the same time as inviting your boyfriend to stay with them must be harder still. I wanted to be supportive and understanding, but I didn't want to be there as 'a friend from school', I wanted to be there as the man he loved. Everything he'd told me about his parents suggested they'd be okay with it, maybe not thrilled, but they weren't going to disown him. Now I knew what he'd been hiding in our phone conversations.
"Don't be like that Ry!" There was a definite note of pleading in his voice. "I meant to tell them, I want to tell them, but I just didn't know how to start, especially over Christmas."
"I'm not being like anything, I'm just a little disappointed."
"I know, I'm a coward, ok?" He turned away from me and rested his head on the wheel.
"No, I'm not disappointed about that, and I think we both know you're no coward." I drew a breath. "I'm disappointed that you sprung this on me instead of telling me before I flew down."
"I thought you'd be mad." He hesitated. "That you might not come." His voice came out very nearly as a whisper and I detected the constriction in his tone that spoke of tears only barely being fought back.
"You're insane!" I burst out in gales of laughter, not the response he expected at all. "You think I'd leave the country without seeing you again? You really are mad."
"No. I..." He trailed off with a helpless shrug and a look of bafflement.
"Alex, I'm only disappointed that you didn't tell me about it. If you're not ready to tell them, you're not ready to tell them. End of discussion, I'd never force you to, I would never force you to do anything, least of all something that might harm your relationship with your family, I know how much it means to you. Alex, I love you, but for the last time I'm going to tell you to have some faith in me!"
"I do, Ryan! God, I really do!" He hugged me tightly. "I'm such a moron. Why didn't I just tell them?"
"It's not easy, the time will come."
"I know, but it means we have to be careful while you're here and I didn't want that to be the case. I don't want to sneak, or lie, I want to celebrate!"
"We don't always get what we want, and if I have to just be your friend for a few days, well it's a small price to pay to be around you again."
"You mean that?" He locked those amazing eyes of his on mine, searching for the truth of my words.
"Yup." I kissed him gently on the lips. "I'd do anything to be with you." And again. "Though maybe it'd be more convincing if I pretend to be your shrink?"
"Yeah, funny." He punched my shoulder lightly. "Do me one favor, try not to tell too many jokes like that? I want them to like you, not cringe every time you speak."
"Hey!"
"Well you can be a bit dorky." He answered with a shrug, I thrust out my lower lip, trying to look crestfallen and the corner of his mouth twitched showing me that the serious face he was putting on was a front.
"I'm going off you, Hayes." I huffed, folding my arms and facing front. "Start the damn car already." He turned the key in the ignition but we conspicuously failed to move. A strong hand grasped my upper arm.
"Ry? I will tell them, I won't live a lie." His earnest gaze transfixed me and I could only nod my understanding. "You're part of me now, and whatever happens that's not going to change."
"I know."
"I hope it won't come to a choice, but, Ry, if it does, I choose you."
"You don't know what that means to me, Alex. But I hope you know I feel the same about you."
"I do, buddy. No hesitation, you all the way." He grinned broadly at me. "No asking the audience, no phoning a friend, no..." I kissed him; it seemed the best way to get him to shut up with the stupid metaphor. And it worked; with another broad, goofy grin he finally started the car out of the airport lot.
He didn't talk much as we drove, I was too busy rubber-necking at the unfamiliar scenery, but when I asked what a distant building was or what kind of trees we were passing Alex replied easily and confidently with the kind of full answer that I knew he was capable of. I had always known, since the day I met him that inside that head of his was a sharp mind, as long as he was interested in the subject. It was getting him interested that was the problem, but it was clear that the place where he grew up was somewhere he knew inside out and loved deeply. Hearing him talk with such enthusiasm filled me with even more warmth for him.
"Almost there." Alex eventually said as we slowed and turned up an unpaved road bounded by white fences and venerable old trees. "Ready?"
"As I'll ever be." I smiled at him, in what I hoped was a reassuring fashion. "Is my breath ok?"
"Minty fresh!" He laughed and punched my shoulder. "Don't worry, they'll love you, I've given you a good build up."
"Great." I said. "So no pressure then?" But a tiny treacherous part of me was thinking that good as it may have been it was woefully incomplete. Something in my tone must have given me away though because Alex shot me a look out of the corner of his eye.
"You think they'd like you more if I said how good you are in bed?"
"Alex!"
"Sorry. I'm just nervous." We turned a corner at that point and emerged from the trees. The road we were on widened out into a large open area in front of a substantial old white clapboard building, bounded by a wide porch. Alex's childhood home, and so unlike the suburban box in which I had grown up.
"Alex, it's lovely." I said with real feeling.
"Yeah, isn't it?" The old glint was back in his eye. "Course this is the just the main house, the working buildings are further down the hill, where you can't see them from the porch."
"Good planning."
"Well, heck, Ryan, us hicks ain't all that dumb."
"Yeah, ha ha. Very funny. Can we drop the stupid accent now, Alex?"
"I don't know what y'all mean, this is how I al'us talk." He hammed it up severely.
"OK. Take me home! It's all off." I said even as I was unfastening my seatbelt, which earned me a pouty, hurt look that I had to laugh at. As we were both procrastinating there in the car a door banged open and a woman appeared on the porch. I knew at once that it was Alex's mother, the resemblance was obvious, even though she was nothing like I had been expecting. I guess I'd thought she'd be a plump, jolly woman with floury hands and an apron and her hair in a bun. She was nothing of the sort, she was dressed in jeans - a garment my own mother hadn't worn since the sixties - and was of slim build and looked younger than the almost sixty I knew her to be. I quickly opened my door and got out of the car as she advanced down the steps and over to us.
"Ryan!" She exclaimed, thrusting out her hand, her accent unplaceable, but nothing like the hick drawl Alex had just been imitating.
"Mrs. Hayes." I replied, taking her hand in mine. "Thanks for inviting me."
"Mrs. Hayes? Oh, Ryan, after all we've heard about you I practically feel like you're one of the family, call me Helen."
"OK, I'll do that." I gave her what I hoped was a winning smile.
"I hope you brought other shoes." She said, apropos of nothing, pointing at my loafers. "If I know my son he'll have you hiking over half the state."
"I..." I was cut off before I could begin to tell her that I had indeed prepared for such an eventuality.
"Now, come along inside, you must be parched." So saying she took my arm and started for the house, I had no choice but to go with her. "Alex, bring Ryan's bags in then come join us in the kitchen."
"OK, mom." Alex replied heading for the boot of the car and raising his eyebrows conspiratorially at me as I was whisked through the door. I was taken to a huge warm kitchen where a black woman was busily slicing vegetables and a child of perhaps four was scribbling away with crayons at a table.
"Throw your coat on a chair, Ryan and have a coffee." Helen indicated a pot. "This is Martha, she's been with us forever and the grubby one over there is my grandson Rueben." The boy in the corner ignored us completely, but the other woman favored me with a bright smile.
"Hello, Ryan, welcome to the madhouse." Martha said returning to her vegetables as I hesitantly hung my coat on the back of a chair.
"Um, hi, thanks."
"We don't stand on ceremony here, Ryan, I had far too much of that growing up." Helen informed me. "We're just one big family, no special treatment for anyone."
"Um..." I began.
"You'll find that Martha's the only steady thing around here. Everyone else comes and goes at all hours, so you'll meet people bit by bit and some you may not meet at all. Just the way things work out." She threw herself into a chair opposite me and gave me a smile. "You'll get used to it."
"Um, OK."
"You don't talk much, do you?"
"Hush, woman, you're not giving him a chance." Martha interjected without so much as glancing up.
"Martha, you're as bad as Bill."
"Bill is your husband? Mr Hayes?" I ventured, based on Alex's middle name.
"Bill is my husband, yes, Alex's father. Mr Hayes he is not, that's his father."
"Oh, right."
"There are four generations of the family in and around the house, and a whole lot more cousins and such in the neighborhood. I can't keep track of them all, so I don't expect you to." Helen rolled her eyes at me, I was about to respond but she kept talking. "I expect many of them to be around for dinner, but you never really know. How's your coffee?"
"Um, lovely, thank you, Mrs Hayes." I was being thrown by these sudden shifts in direction, a lot of Alex's peculiarities were starting to make sense.
"Helen, and you and I are going to get on much better if you don't start every sentence with 'um', Ryan."
"Mom, don't torture him." Alex's voice sounded from behind me, and I felt a wash of relief, his calm voice was a lifebelt in the sea of his mother's talking. "She's like this with everyone." He explained, pouring himself coffee and joining us.
"I have been rather dominating the conversation." His mother admitted with not so much as a trace of regret in her voice.
"You always do." Martha interjected, good-naturedly.
"I've been explaining how chaotic things are in this house." Helen continued speaking to Alex as though Martha had never said a word, but the way her lip curled in amusement gave her away.
"Ryan's a neat freak." Alex supplied.
"I am not!" I felt I had to defend myself.
"Then God alone knows how you've coped living with a slob like Alex." His mother snorted, and I was tempted to offer an answer. "I gave up trying years ago."
"It hasn't been so bad." I replied with absolute honesty. "He was obviously brought up well."
"Ha! Do you really think so?" She laughed. "Well, whether you do or not, I'll take the compliment."
"I meant it as..." I began.
"Where did you put Ryan's bags, Alex?" His mother turned her attention away from me for a moment. Alex had got up from the table as we talked and I had seen him foraging for food. I'd also seen him swiping a carrot from Martha while she was looking the other way and jump back grinning as she swung at him when she noticed.
"Hall." He said between bites of the illicit vegetable.
"Well they're no use there, are they, dear? Take them up to your room."
"Where's the linen for the camp bed?" He asked shooting me an apologetic look.
"Don't be ridiculous, Alex."
"Huh?"
"Your mother isn't entirely stupid." She smiled fondly at her son. "I had five brothers, I've had four children of my own, and I have cable."
"Oh." Alex managed, less than intelligently.
"But more importantly I have eyes and ears and I know my own son."
"How long have you known?" He finally managed after goggling at his mother for a moment.
"For sure? Since Thanksgiving, but I'd worked out something was going on months before that." Was the matter-of-fact response. "If not years before."
"Years?" He asked, incredulous.
"Alexander, a mother knows." She turned to me. "But even if I hadn't, the way you talk about Ryan, and the way the two of you have been shooting each other looks for the last half hour would have been a dead give away." I was suddenly reminded of the waitress on the way home from our cabin trip. Maybe it was that obvious, certainly the evidence was stacking up.
"Hell, boy, even I can see how in love you are." Martha offered as she scraped carrot peelings into the trash. We looked at each other, and I imagine the surprise on my face was about as evident as that on Alex's.
"And you don't mind?" Alex asked.
"Have you stopped being my son?" Helen replied with a question of her own.
"No."
"Then why should I?"
"Well, you know, not everyone's comfortable..." Alex trailed off, and I remained silent. If this was something he had to ask, then it was for him to do.
"Alex, how many boyfriends and girlfriends have I been introduced to over the years?"
"I don't know. Dozens?"
"At least. And of all those people, I can think of three that I've heard described in the kind of glowing terms you've used for Ryan, and they ended up married to your brother and sisters. If one of my children loves someone the way they do, and the way you obviously love Ryan, then that person is part of my family, and that's an end to it."
"Does this mean I have to remember another uncle?" A petulant voice broke in before Alex could answer. Reuben, who I for one had forgotten was coloring in the corner. Well, what could we all do but laugh?
THE END