Going Home, part 24

Disclaimer: If you're under age to read stuff about guys having sex or if you find it offensive, your society finds it offensive or illegal then stop reading now! This story is completelly fictional, as are all the characters.

By the same author: Previously I've written the multipart story "A Different World" which can be found under gay/sciencefiction at nifty. I've recently also started a spin off/sequel to that story, which is published in the same subdirectory, i.e. the directory for "A Different World". The spin off/sequel is called "What Dreams May Come".

This part contains some graphic voilence but only what's necessary for the story.

Going Home, part 24

Written by Adam

Last time on "Going Home":

"Yes, that's what the gray haired man meant... but Brian, or rather the person who... you know what I mean! He says 'No, we would have needed to get permission to do that from Jonathan Harvey who wrote the stage- and screen plays for Beautiful Thing. But there never was any question of trying to get that since it was the intention of Terry to write an original screen play about teenage boys falling in love with each others and coping with the fact that they're gay'. Then the gray haired man says 'ah yes, and for those viewers who doesn't know this, Teri both wrote and directed the movie and I understand that you've been living together for the last year and are engaged to be married. I've never met Teri though. What's she like?' and then you look at the gray haired man and seem indecisive for a few seconds and change position in the chair rather nervously before you say 'I love Terry very much thank you. And yes, I will marry him as soon as gay marriages are made legal here in the state of California'... and then there's a short and rather uncomfortable silence before those guys at the back begin cheering and applauding and after a few seconds the rest of the audience join them" I said.

And now the continuation:

"So that's how I said it, but it doesn't explain why?" Brian said.

"No, but I believe that comes next... The gray haired man then says..." I said.

"Wait, didn't you say that Brian called him 'J'? One letter? Could it be the first letter of the gray haired man's name?" Paul said.

"No, it's not 'J', it's 'Jay'... that's his name..." Mark said.

"Excuse me, where was the difference? You just said the letter 'J' twice ... and what I don't understand is how I can now about the letter 'J' and what it looks like, and all the other letters in the Terran alphabet... I never knew the Terran language, the one we're speaking now when I was a Master but now I speak it fluently and can read and write it too..." Ike said.

"The knowledge is preprogrammed into the memory circuits of every Terran clone.... I experienced the same thing... actually it was kinda confusing at first but I've gotten used to it now... it's the same as with the locked combat training file that you talked about, only the language files aren't locked" Kim said.

"Combat training?" Ike said.

"All Terrans are meant to be soldiers for the Masters eventually... there's a war going on and right now they're sending us younger and younger and as far as I've understood all the silver collars in this room except me will be sent within the next twentyfour hours... and if they continue sending younger and younger Terrans all the time, you and I will get drafted within a few weeks... and, well instead of putting us through a training program that takes a lot of time they've put a file in our heads that will be unlocked with a secret codeword... but we can access certain information from it already" Andy said.

"You know about the war, bro'! Mom always talks about it and how wrong this war is and more specifically how wrong it is to have the Terrans fight it for us" Kim said.

"Ofcourse, and I agree... but what's the information that I can already access?" Ike said.

"I'll show you! Stand up and face me!" Andy said and Ike and he stood up facing each other.

"Be careful, he could hurt you pretty bad" Paul said to Andy.

"I know what I'm doing and will make the appropriate counte rmove... I'm prepared this time, unlike when you kicked me the other day... but thanks for the warning anyway..." Andy said to Paul and then turned to Ike.

"What are you going to do?" Ike said.

"Round kick!" Andy said suddenly and Ike automatically swivelled round on one leg while lifting the other leg high.

Ike would have hit Andy square in the face if Andy hadn't leaned back and put one palm up to take the blow and put the other arm over and around Ike's leg and twisted it so Ike lost balance and fell face first towards the floor but automatically reached out his hands and hardly touched the the floor with his body but instead made a sort of back flip to a standing position with both hands up ready to fight. Then Andy made a round kick towards Ike who made the same counter move on him, though Andy remained on the floor and looked up at Ike who moved towards him, looking rather menacing.

"Stand down!" Andy said and Ike became himself again.

"What did just happen?" Ike said.

"You accessed part of your combat training" Brian said.

"Scary" Ike said.

"Yes, I know... we two have always practically been pacifists but now suddenly there's this dark side to us that they will bring to the surface eventually and then we'll be these scary killing machines wether we wants to or not" Kim said.

"Really scary" Ike said.

"Yeah, but there's nothing we can do about it... so let's go back to Jack's story, and the difference between being called 'J' or 'J'..." Kim said.

"The gray haired man's name is Jay, which is spelled J-A-Y and pronounced 'Jay'" Mark said.

"'Y'?" Brian said.

"I don't know why, it just is pronounced... oh, you and your silly jokes!" Mark said.

"Sorry... So what did Jay say next?" Brian said laughing.

"Let's see, where were we?" I said.

"... I'd just told him I was dating somebody and intended to marry him and this caused a lot of cheers from the audience" Brian said.

"Ah yes... well the gray haired... Jay says...." I began and then told them about the rest of the interview.

To make the reading of the Leno section easier to read I'll be leaving the first person narrative from Jack's point of view for a while and write it in a third person p.o.v of somebody living here and now on Earth. I'd like to point out that this is not based on any 'Tonight Show' episode that has ever been taped. I will refer to the original Brian by the name Tom Bryant which is the name of the person who gets abducted and cloned and which as you may notice is a name that I've made up since this is a totally fictional person and not based on any real, living actor. For safety I made a search on IMDB which found no actor by that name. and the film he's promoting has never been made. The other characters, Jay, Kevin mentioned are merelly inspired by the real persons as I can't be entirely sure they would react and talk the way I write here. I hope this is enough to avoid any lawsuit.

"Hold on, hold on... you're saying that you're gay?" Jay said.

"Yes, I'm gay, Jay" Tom said and then there's another uncomfortable silence that lasted a couple of seconds.

"I hope you realise that this show is transmitted all over the world more or less... so now everyone knows you're gay" Jay said.

"Yes, I'm fully aware of this Jay and I've cleared this with my agent so this is no surprise to him... he wasn't happy at first but I told him what I'm about to tell you that I can't go on lying about myself, about who I am. I want to be able to be who I am without lying about it and stand for who I am" Tom said and this caused another round of applause and cheers from the audience.

"You mentioned your agent, but what about your parents? Won't they be surprised?" Jay said.

"No, I came out to them when I hit puberty and realised myself that I'm gay, and I've made sure they knew in advance too that I would be coming out here tonight" Tom said.

"But consider this, all those teenage girls that I thought might not like that you played a gay character how they might feel about you actually beeing gay? And then Hollywood is still pretty homophobic and so your coming out here tonight may have the effect that you don't get any more movie roles here in hollywood or at least very few" Jay said.

"If the fans can't deal with the fact that I'm gay that's their problem. Either accept me for the person I am or don't. I don't want to lie about myself for the benefit of others. As for my career in Hollywood... well, I've been thinking about that... well, firstly; I've thought this through and the risk that my career may be over now is a risk I'm willing to take if it also means I can be who I am and not having to lie about it... And then I believe an important factor wether I get any new roles is that I came out, and wasn't outed... if I'd been outed I think it would have been much harder to get acting jobs... And then there's both Ian McKellen and Rupert Everett who both are openly gay and still get acting jobs in Hollywood... though maybe not as many as other actors who are straight or closet cases" Tom said.

"True about McKellen and Everett. And I hope you're right about your theory that coming out helps more than being outed, and that you get many more movie roles after this. Now, you have a clip from your new movie, would you like to set it up?" Jay said as the TV set began to rise in the background with a frozen image of Tom on the screen.

"Yes, here my character, Brian who's the popular kid in school has intervened when some bullies were mean to the new kid in class Jim, and then invited him home over night on the pretext of helping each other out with the homework" Tom said.

"Okay, let's see it. Roll the tape!" Jay said.

We switch to the scene from the movie which replaces the image of Jay and Tom in the studio the way it would if you watch the 'Tonight Show' on TV. There are black, horizontal bars at the top and bottom of the screen as the clip is in the 1.85:1 aspect ratio that the movie is made in. The frozen image of Tom Bryant as the character Brian, sitting on his bed in a dark room, illuminated almost only by his reading lamp comes alive. There's a change of perspective as the camera, which is on a steadicam rig moves back and to the side until the character Jim is seen, played by another unnamed actor, sitting on the bed too, but at the foot end of the bed. They both wear jeans and t-shirts and are barefoot and each have a book though Jim's is closed and to put beside him on the bed.

"Correct. Now it's my turn. Pick a verb at random" 'Brian' said.

"Okay. How about... '_Aimé_r'?" 'Jim' said, having picked up his book and opened a page at random while 'Brian' put his away.

"Um... Je t'aime..." 'Brian' said.

"Yes... and the second person form?" 'Jim' said.

"Je t'aime" 'Brian' said.

"No, that's the first person form again..." 'Jim' said.

"Tu es très beau!" Brian said.

"That was second person, but not the right verb... and that was terrible pronounciation!" Jim said.

"I don't care, I mean it, you're beautiful and I love you... I fell in love with you the moment I first saw you in class last week" Brian said.

"Say what?! Are you queer? I hope that was just some lame attempt at a joke!... we're supposed to be doing our French homework so speak French" Jim said.

"Okay. How about... Voulez wous coucher avec moi ce soir?" Brian said.

"You are queer, aren't you?" Jim said.

"Yes... I guess I've blown it now. Here's the phone" Brian said taking the phone and handing it to Jim.

"The phone? Why?" Jim said.

"Well, I guess that now that you know that I'm gay you don't want to sleep over any more so here's the phone so you can call your parents and ask them to come and pick you up. I thought that you were gay too and hoped you would like me, but apparently my gaydar isn't working properly" Brian said wiping a tear off his cheek while still holding out the phone with the other.

"No, you were right, and your gaydar seems to be working okay... I'm gay too and because I'm new in school and not at hiding it as you those stupid jocks caught on and that's what they were picking on me about when you intervened... I wanna stay, if you still want me to and I do think you're very pretty too" Jim said.

"So why did you do the homophobic routine, 'Are you queer?' on me just now?" Brian said putting the phone back on the desk.

"Yeah, I'm sorry about that... I guess it's my way of checking if you're honest about it... maybe not the best way to do that... will you forgive me?" Jim said.

"Yes, I forgive you... but how do I know that you're honest about this now?" Brian said.

"Well, a homophobe probably wouldn't lean over and kiss you like this" Jim said.

"I haven't noticed anybody leaning over and kissing me" Brian said.

"Just you wait" Jim said and leaned over and kissed Brian.

Brian lay back on the bed and Jim followed to lie on top of him as they went on kissing and then the image faded to black with only a hint at the end that in the movie it's really a cross fade to the next scene when the boys wake up next morning.

There's a cut to the 'Tonight Show' set at Burbank Studios where the audience is once again cheering and applauding while the TV set is being lowered behind Tom and Jay.

"It's a rather romantic movie it seems and I look forward to watching it... and by Kevin's laugh over there I'm sure he's even more eager to see it!" Jay say.

"What do you mean, Jay?" Kevin Eubanks said.

"Oh come on, Kevin. I bet you can't wait to see a romantic movie about two boys falling in love, why else would you be laughing like that?" Jay said.

"I was just wondering how many times you will sit through that movie, Jay... I'm sure it's be many times" Kevin said.

"No, I'll see it once and maybe catch it on cable some time too, but that's it... though I'm sure you'll find a non stop cinema where you can sit in the same seat and watch it over and over again.... don't you think so too, Tom?" Jay said.

"Oh, absolutly... I'll even watch it with you, Kevin" Tom said.

"No, that's okay... I'm still waiting for Jay to fix me up with Chyna! Besides, what will your boyfriend think if you take me to the movie?" Kevin said.

"Oh, that's right... while the clip was being shown I was told that Terry is here tonight, in the audience... front row, I believe. Come on up here, Terry!" Jay said.

There were lots of applause and cheering from the audience and both Tom and Jay waved at Terry to come up on stage, which he did after some hesitation and hugged Tom. Terry turned out to be a rather well built man, slightly taller than Tom and about ten years older than Tom who looked like he was somewhere in his twenties.

"Oh look, aren't they sweet! Come on, kiss each other, it'll be a great image as we go to comercial... The movie is 'Prom Queens', starring Tom Bryant, and it opens on Friday! We'll be right back with Richard Simmons!" Jay said and the image faded to black as the camera zoomed in on Tom and Terry.

And now we return to the normal first person narrative from Jack's point of view.

"I'm not the jelous type normally but who's that Terry fellow you were dating and intended to marry and where can I find him so I can beat the living crap out of him" Paul said.

"I don't know... I've never seen him or met him. It was the original person that I was cloned from... Tom Bryant? ... who supposedly was dating that Terry guy... we only have Jack's word for this" Brian said.

"Jack, where's that Terry fellow?" Paul said.

"Er... he's not here... on this planet... I've never seen him, at least... I don't think he was even abducted and if that's the case he wasn't cloned... so you have nothing to worry about... and then, I remember that when the original me bumped into that Tom Bryant fellow... I think that must be after that parade that I keep dreaming about, the original me talked to him and he said that Terry... oh, God... Terry was dead... a few days after being on that show Terry had gone to this SevenEleven to buy something and some homophobes who'd seen him on the show had decided to beat him up and then they'd also stabbed him and he'd died before he reached the hospital... and on Earth, death is as final to the Terrans as it is for the Masters here" I said.

"Yes, but that goes without saying since it appears to be before Earth made any interstellar contact... officially at least and the cloning technique we have here and now hadn't been developed yet..." Kim said.

"What I wonder is how you can remember everything so clearly... what everybody said, and everything..." Ike said.

"Yes, I wonder too... I mean it's no problem remembering what everybody says to me here and now as a clone, I just store the dialog as a text file and incorporate in my journal later... the memory circuits make that possibel and very easy... but the original Jack had no memory circuits he couldn't remember everything that everybody said on that show... but still... as I told you about it, every word came to me as clearly as... if I was watching the show here and now... as though my memory circuits and collar somehow picked up the signal and transformed it to memories for me..." I said.

"And that's not possible... it's possible that the memory could be there among the other memories that causes your dreams, but you still wouldn't be able to remember so exactly what everybody says and so on..." Mark said.

"I remember more than that... I remember the smell... in the room where Kenny... or rather the guy that Kenny is cloned from... sat and watched that show in a couch... rather similar to this one... with our arms around each other and what else is in the room... it's dark, late night... and before the 'Tonight Show' we have been watching another movie... that's stored on a disc about ten centimeters in diameter and which is stored in a sort of rectangular case when it's not in use... the disc is not transparent like the discs that the information from the surveillance cameras is stored on but there's an image on one side of the disc and the other is just a gleaming, metallic surface covered by another transparent material... and somehow the movie is stored in and read from the metallic surface. The casing for the disc is mostly yellow and read... kinda like Kim's clothes, I guess... and on one side there's the image of a face and then further back there are more, smaller faces and some arrows back and forth between them and... then there's text which I believe is the title of the movie; 'Get Real'... On the table is also two round metallic things into which two other round poles of some kind of softer material are stuck .... one in each metallic thingy... and there's a small flame at the top of each pole..." I said.

"Candles" Mike said.

"Yeah, sounds like it... hold on" Mark said and got up off the floor and brought out two such metal objects with one of those other poles in each and put them on the table... the softer poles each had a small, burnt piece of string sticking out of them and then Mark brought out another device that produced a small flame that he used to set fire to the strings.

"Computer, dim the lights in the room" Mark said and the room got darker.

"Yes, that's it... that's exactly what was standing on the table in my memory" I said.

"They're called candles" Mark said.

"Okay. And then the last few things on the table are a couple of remotes... but these aren't used to torture or kill somebody but just to controll the screen and device that plays the disc and transforms the information on it to sound and images and the sound playing system... and then there's a large empty bowl in which there are some hard, brownish, yellow round things that really are left over since they weren't made into the thing that we'd been eating out of that bowl... and it's the taste of those white things we had been eating while watching the movie that I'm remembering the smell of" I said.

"The things that are left are small, hard and brown while the ones you'd been eating where white and soft I presume?" Tom said... and yes, it's the Tom that workes in the building where Kim lived as a Master and not the Tom that later got abducted and cloned and named himself Brian.

"Yes, white and fluffy... from my memory it seems they all were that hard and brown things at first and kept in a paper bag that you put in a kind of machine that bombarded them with... some kind of radiation I think which caused them to explode... to turn themselves inside out sorta and thereby become those white fluffy things" I said.

"Popcorn" Tom said.

"Yes... unfortunatly I don't have any, so I can't show you" Mark said.

"Me neither. Tom?" Mike said.

"Nope, sorry" Tom said.

"That's okay, at least you know what I'm talking about" I said.

"You said that you bumped into me on after the parade you keep dreaming about?" Brian said.

"But wasn't you from a different continent... and as I understand an ordinary person and not a famous actor like Brian?" Paul said.

"Yes, but he said earlier that this Tom Bryant disappeared when he was in Sweden to promote this film that he was promoting when he came out to this Jay guy... You said something about the movie opening during Stockholm Pride and as I've understood the parade you keep dreaming about has something to do with that Pride thing too... and isn't Sweden where the original Jack lived? ... And then, if a famous actor moves about among ordinary people he'll inadvertantly 'bump into' them... and if he's famous, then they recognise him I suspect... and some might even begin to talk to him like, apparently the original Jack and Kenny did" Brian said.

"Exactly... except that Kenny wasn't there... we'd gotten accidentally separated in the mass of people that's there and I'm looking for him I think... but I never find him... ever... the original Jack had seen the original Kenny for the last time..." I said.

"But doesn't the original me try to find him so if both work towards the same goal it should be easier... and I suspect that we were watching that movie and then the show at home where one or both of us lived so the easiest thing would be to make it back there and then they'd find each other again... unless the original me left the original Jack intentionally or vice versa?" Kenny said.

"Yes, and the original me went home to that appartment later the same night... I think they lived there together... but, the original you wasn't there and never came there... I think you'd already been abducted... and I think the original me witnessed the abduction or part of it of Tom Bryant..." I said.

"So this must be before the papers said he had disappeared?" Paul said.

"Yes... that, I think was two or three days later... and the original me saw it and bought one paper just after the police had finnished questioning me... they wanted to know everything I knew since I was the last person who had seen him alive... I think there were somebody there from the US embassy too... since it was one of their citizens that had disappeared... and there was a lot of questions of how come we apparently had slipped away from this area of tents and so on up on a hill among trees and... made love... they called me something... 'star fucker' I think it was... teasing me about the fact that I had done it with a famous person just because he was famous... I think they were deliberatly trying to provoke me into confessing something, but I didn' since I hadn't done anything wrong... and there was some talk about how I had used his vulnerability to get him to have sex with me... that he was still sad that he'd lost his boyfriend recently and that I'd used this somehow... and they also questioned me about how my boyfriend would feel if he knew that I'd cheated on him and then I told them that we'd become separated and... well since the questioning was a few days later I told them that you were missing too and then they got suspicios that more than one person had disappeared in my vicinity..." I said.

"And how long after that did you get abducted?" Stan said.

"Three or four days, I think... There had been more writings in the papers about Tom Bryant who'd been found dead a few days after he disappeared... in a rented car... a fast car... it looked like he'd lost controll of the car and crashed into a mountain side just by the road but there were a few strange things about it... apparently he'd lost a lot of blood... actually all blood was gone from the body but there wasn't any blood around on the ground and in the car... wait, there was blood everywhere as it should be if he'd bled to death, only the strange thing was that it wasn't his blood... it was the wrong blood group... it was somebody else's... no, that's not right either... it wasn't blood, not real blood... it was fake blood of a kind that was normally made to be used in movies... and there was a hole in his chest as though he'd been impaled on the steering column... but when the steering column had been examined it showed that nobody had been impaled on it..." I said.

"And all this was in the papers?" Mark said.

"No, the papers only said that it had been a car crash... it was the cops that told me, when they brought me in for questioning again... and then there was a phone call and they brought me with them for some reason to the hill where I'd been with Bryant... Brian... well, you know... when he'd disappeared and not far from that spot they'd found Kenny's body... he was dead too... and he didn't have any blood in him either, and there were to holes on the side of his throat, here where the artery is" I said and pointed on the place on Kenny's throat where the holes had been on the original Kenny.

"Why where there holes there?" Kim said.

"Vampire?" Mike said.

"Those are only a myth... they never existed" Mark said.

"Yes, the cops talked about how whoever had killed Kenny had tried to make it look like a vampire had attacked him and sucked all his blood out, but that it for some reason was obvious that it wasn't any teeth that hade made the holes... and they pulled up the shirt and there was a hole through Kenny's chest similar to the one in Bryant's... the cops joked how the 'vampire wannabee must have been confused' since traditionally it was the vampire and not the victim who should be impaled and then they were about to take me into custody for the murders of both Kenny and Tom when something moved in at incredible speed and suddenly and hovered above us and a light shone down on us... everybody but me frose like somebody stopped time and I was lifted up and suddenly I was lying on a table and people... Terrans with gold collars... though the original me had never seen a collar before... were in the room with me and a voice from one of them told me to remember the happy times in my life... that I should concentrate on the happy moments and then there was a sharp pain at the back of my neck and an incredible head ache began and I shook like crazy as my memories were sucked out of me while I concentrated on happy moments... there was another voice that asked 'should we really be doing this? We're only supposed to take the blood so they can be cloned and then return the body... and that stupid idea of yours of puncturing that guys throat! Nobody will believe it was vampires.... Nobody believes in vampires... they'll get suspicious!' and then the first voice said 'Exactly! As for taking his memories, I intend to parts of them back to the clone so he'll have memories of Earth and be quiet now, I'm gonna tell him something else! Listen carefully! The most important thing to you shall be to find out all you can about these happy memories and of Earth which is your home and how and why you were taken from there and cloned and what happened to Earth and who did it! Do you understand?' and I nodded and then the things at the back of my neck disappeared and hands pulled up my shirt and then a rod came down from the ceiling at great speed an force and went straight into my chest and then I noticed that it was a transparent tube at the side of it and it filled with blood flowing upwards from me and I couldn't do anything about it as my arms and legs were fastened to the table by metal braces. The pumping out of my blood went on for quite a while and I felt the world slip away from me and the original Jack died" I said.

I will try to keep this story running parallel with What Dreams May Come (the spin off/sequel to A Different World) and write chapters for both. I'm interested in your feedback and suggestions. Is there some story thread that you would like me to explore further or turn into a spin off? ... Write me at my_evil_twin47@yahoo.com and tell me what you think of this story!