=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= This story is a work of FICTION. While actual people and/or events may inspire some characters and situations, no implications are intended or should be drawn. Any similarities to actual events or persons are strictly coincidental.
THIS STORY CONTAINS GRAPHIC DEPICTIONS OF CONSENSUAL SEXUAL ACTS BETWEEN TWO ADULT MALES. IT IS INTENDED FOR A MATURE AUDIENCE ONLY! IF YOU FIND THIS TYPE OF MATERIAL OFFENSIVE, IF YOU ARE UNDER 18, OR UNDER THE LEGAL AGE TO VIEW SUCH MATERIAL THEN PLEASE READ NO FURTHER.
Copyright 2007 All original material contained here within is copyrighted by the author, Cameron Maxx, and may not be reproduced in any form without express written consent. The Nifty Archive is granted a non-exclusive, worldwide, royalty-free, perpetual, and non-cancelable license to display this work.
PLEASE NOTE: Feedback, both positive and negative, is welcomed and greatly appreciated. Abusive correspondence or flames of any kind will, of course, be strictly ignored - cameron.maxx@gmail.com =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
INTRODUCTION
This is my first submission to Nifty and I hope you enjoy it. As an avid reader of the archive for many years, I've long wanted to write and submit something but have just never gotten around to it. I was a writer while in college and even had a few things published (it's not as exciting as it sounds ... I promise) but since graduating and entering the corporate work world, have found it difficult to sit down and find the inspiration to write. I'm not sure why I actually wrote this, but it might have something to do with it being right before the New Year when I began. That always seems like a good time to start something new.
I've always been impressed most by the stories on Nifty that combine both a good story and characters you care about along with some hot, steamy sex scenes. Sure, the short dirty ones are good for getting off, but the ones I remember most get me off in addition to making an emotional connection. And so, that is what I've aimed for here: a story that is both sexually and emotionally stimulating.
Thanks to all the Nifty writers who've entertained me over the years and thank you for reading. Please feel free to contact me with thoughts or feedback.
-Cameron cameron.maxx@gmail.com
CHAPTER 1
Josh was 20 years old when he came to live with me in California. I was 35.
How this all came to pass and how our relationship came to be started long before that, of course. In fact, I first met him when he was 10 and I was 25. Trust me when I say, I know how shocking that sounds. What can I say? It's embarrassing; it's awkward to think about even now. I'd never dated anyone more than 2 years my junior and would have scoffed at the idea that I ever would. I'm guilty of having mocked and probably even judged people who did. But, that doesn't change the fact that I'm 35 and he's 20. The irony should not be lost on me; lesson learned.
I was living in Texas at the time, Austin to be exact. I met his mother, Abbey, about two years after I started my first full time job out of college. She was only a year and half or so older than me and we hit it off almost immediately. She was an assistant manager in the accounting depart of the real estate firm we worked for. I was in sales. When she became the liaison between the accounting and sales departs, Abbey attended our weekly sales meetings and we would chat from time to time.
We had similar thoughts on politics, movies, and a shared sense of humor for all things inappropriate. We were the youngest two employees at the firm by several years, so it was probably only natural that we would gravitate towards each other. I know she had two children, but didn't think much about it. As the months passed and I got to know Abbey better I gained a great deal of respect for her. She had gotten pregnant with Josh during the fall semester of her senior year in high school. She was just barely 18. Her mother was less than progressive and really only offered her one option: forget about college and get married.
Having grown up in a small town in Texas, Abbey didn't really know that there were other things she could have done. So, she married the guy and 9 months later Josh was born. About two years later his little sister, Cadee was born. When she was still a toddler, not even out of diapers, they were divorced and Abbey found herself a newly single mother of two. They had tried to make it work, but just never were in love. One kid couldn't make it so and neither could a second.
And just like that, without a college degree or any contacts, Abbey managed to get herself hired at a respected real estate firm and started building the best life she could for her kids. She was smart, funny, reliable, very hardworking and managed to quickly work her way up in the company. Josh was 9 and Cadee was 7 when I first met their mother. Almost an entire year would pass before I met them in person, but in the meantime Abbey and I became very close and I felt like I already knew both the kids.
I had been openly and comfortably gay with most everyone in my life since I was 18 or 19. So, it was no surprise that Abbey would be fully aware of the fact. As she began to integrate me more into her life, her home, and the daily life of her kids it crossed my mind that it might be an issue. It never was. In fact, I think when I first started spending time with Josh, it was more of an issue for me than it was for them. Having grown up in the south, I was painfully aware of the negative stereotypes that circulated about gay men and young boys and so probably went out of my way initially to prove that nothing "abnormal" was happening. I later found out that Abbey had told the kids about it before I ever met them. Turns out Cadee went to school with a girl who had two moms and Josh had been watching "Will & Grace" for years. Both kids were completely okay with it and Cadee, in particular, thought it was "very cool" that "her friend Alex" was gay. It was amazing to me then, and still is, how many things had changed "after Ellen," if you will.
And so weeks turned into months, which in turn, became years. Abbey became one of my closest friends and we spent a great deal of time together. I watched Josh and Cadee grow into young adults and grew to love them both. Cadee was a handful, a teenager in attitude long before she hit high school. She loved boys, everything pink, and drama! She wasn't a bad kid by any means. In fact she was truly tuned into people's feelings and connected with everyone. She never met a stranger. But, she was a wild teenage girl and that kept her mom very busy. In fact, sometimes I thought the two of them were going to kill each other. With Cadee, if it wasn't one thing it was another.
Josh on the other hand was more subdued. He was very focused, competitive, and quite literal. Whatever you said, he took it word for word. I think he was borderline OCD that way. But, having been so young when he started caring for both his mom and sister, being the man of the house so to speak, I think it was only natural that he'd be this way. Like his sister, he was genuinely caring in his dealings with others and always had a deep felt compassion for his fellow man. But, he was also intensely private. About a year after I met him he stopped talking to his mom as openly as he had. I assured Abbey this was perfectly normal. That being said, even though we grew closer and closer, I noted that he only opened up to me when he was ready to do so and if I made the mistake of asking too many questions that would be the end of the conversation. In the year before his 13th birthday, Josh discovered sports and they became his obsession. Football, basketball, baseball, soccer, and even golf - he loved them all and was eager to both watch them and play them. As he grew into a young man we became even closer. I was an only child and had always wanted a sibling, particularly a younger brother. He became like that to me and I loved him very much. Even though I knew clearly what our relationship was and was not, perhaps from my own fear and internalized biases, I still kept a certain distance.
I remember one Christmas I was at Abbey's house and we'd just exchanged Christmas presents. I'd gotten him two or three things I knew he wanted and after everything had been unwrapped we were upstairs and I was watching him play the new basketball game I'd gotten him on his Nintendo Wii. Being that we were already very comfortable with each other in a smartass, brother sort of a way at that point I said to him, "Joshua, I hope you know what I had to go through to get that fucking game for you."
He paused the game and looked at me. "What do you mean?" he asked.
"I mean, every store in the city was sold out and I couldn't even find it online. So, for like weeks I was calling every store and bugging them to find out if they'd gotten any shipments or not."
He smiled and chuckled then said, "yeah, I knew it would be hard to find, that's why I ask you for it."
I let his words sink in for a minute then felt a smile forming on my lips, "you know, you're a little bastard just to assume I'd care so much to go to all that trouble, aren't you?"
At that, he got a serious look on his face and moved from where he was standing to sit down very close to me on the couch. With an intent look on young face, he asked, "why do you call me Joshua? You've called me that since we first met."
His closeness and the question caught me a bit off guard. "What do you mean? I call you that because that's your name."
With that look of deep intent still on his face he said, "No. I mean why do you call me Joshua, not Josh or Joshey, or something like that."
Suddenly I felt uncomfortable and I didn't understand what this was all about. "I call you Josh sometimes, I mean, I just ..."
He cut me off in mid sentence, "No. You call me Joshua a lot more than you call me Josh. No one else calls me Joshua." He paused for a moment, breaking eye contact and looking away before locking eyes with me once more.
"You call me Joshua because you care about me and you care what I think about you. That's why you worked so hard to get that game."
Sitting on the couch with this very smart, almost 13 year old little person staring me down I felt small and more than a little defensive. I was still processing what he said, what he meant, and how to respond when he spoke again.
"Thank you," and with that he leaned forward and wrapped his arms around me in a quick, unexpected hug. Without even thinking my arms returned the hug and it was nice. All my anxiety melted away and everything felt just fine. But after only a couple of seconds my mind kicked in again and I felt my body stiffen before I dropped my arms and moved away from him. He sat there, perfectly still, looking at me.
After a moment, I said, "you're welcome."
A moment longer passed before he blinked, stood up, and went back to playing the game on his Wii. I wasn't sure what had happened or what he meant, but after a few minutes, the odd feeling passed and things went back to normal.
In what seemed like nothing at all, six years came and went from when I'd first met Abbey's kids. Josh and I continued our friendship and he became more and more like a little brother. We both loved sports and music, so there was plenty of common ground. We'd call or text each other while watching a game on TV. We shared songs and smartass comments about each other's musical taste and were constantly comparing the content of our iPods. I tried to open him up to the music that I preferred like Pearl Jam, Radiohead, Tori Amos, Bjork, The White Stripes, The Strokes, Something Corporate, Poe, Garbage, and other "real" musicians playing "real" music. He insisted that he liked the more mainstream rock stuff and I still, to this day, swear he'd buy shit like Nickelback just to piss me off. In typical teenage, little brother fashion he seemed to derive a special joy in pushing my buttons and teasing me about the "old" music I liked.
Over the years he played football, basketball, and baseball in both middle school and high school. I attended as many games as I could. He was never going to be a superstar athlete, but he was pretty damn good thanks to the ferocity and focus that he used, like everything else in his life, to attack his practices and advice from his coaches. From time to time he'd talk to me about life at school and friends, but continued to be very private about his life away from his family and me. Much to my surprise, sex was never a topic despite both his mom and me telling him he could talk to me and ask me questions about "private" stuff if he wanted to. On a few very rare occasions he'd mention a girl that thought he was cute or even, once or twice, his girlfriend. But even fewer details than normal were offered in regards to this and I knew better than to ask questions.
From what I gathered from his mom, more so than I ever got from Joshua, he was by all accounts a pretty popular and well-liked kid. I could see why. He'd always been a naturally good looking guy thanks to the best of the gene pools from both his parents. As he grew into a young man who regularly played sports, he was without a doubt, very cute. I could only assume that the girls were all over him. When you put that together with his intelligence and natural kind disposition, there was no reason for him not to be popular. I wished sometimes that he'd share more of that side of his life with me, but in the end I trusted that he was happy and truthfully that's all I cared about. He was a great kid and deserved all the happiness that life could offer.
During the course of those six years, I'd gone back to school, taking classes at night and on the weekends, and had gotten my Masters in Theatre and the Performing Arts. I'd always been involved in theatre growing up and it was always my first love. I didn't know what I was going to do with my Masters. I could teach or use it to get involved in acting myself. But, I'd always wanted to go to California, to live there and be surrounded by people involved in the creative process on a daily basis. And so, getting my Masters was a way to stay connected with that world that I felt so isolated from in my big, glass office building that was one of the many trappings of my corporate job that I found increasingly distasteful.
When I was offered and accepted a teaching post at USC I was 31. Josh was 16 and a sophomore in high school. I had only recently finished my Masters and had applied to many a university, all in California, for a teaching position. I didn't expect much and USC was, in all honesty, a kind of pie in the sky idea. When I sent them my letter and resume, I could only dream that I'd ever teach there and assumed I'd never hear from them again. When I got the call only a few weeks later I was overwhelmed. I hadn't expected to be making the move so soon and I certainly wasn't expecting to be making the move because USC wanted me. Overwhelmed though I was, I knew I couldn't let this opportunity pass me by.
Abbey was the first person in Austin I told. She was, of course, sad to see me go but was incredibly warm and supportive of me. Cadee was thrilled and immediately asked when she could come visit me in California. Joshua gave his rather subdued congratulations and then went about his business. Even for him it was an unusually internalized reaction. I worried but Abbey assured me it was just his way of dealing with the fact that he was losing his "big brother." I'm not sure if that made me feel better or worse.
Everything happened very quickly from there. I had a little less than a month to pack and make arrangements for the move after accepting the offer. Needless to say, that was a very hectic time. Josh stayed rather distance and didn't call me once during that time. It bothered me, but quite frankly, was just too busy to worry about it too much and assumed his mother was right about how he was dealing with it. He was, after all, only 16.
After several nice goodbye dinners and one big goodbye party the day finally arrived. All my stuff had left with the movers on a truck the day before and I had slept at Abbey's house since my bed was probably somewhere in New Mexico by then. Just after 10:00 in the morning Abbey, the kids, and I found ourselves standing on the curb in front of her house. My car, a Toyota Prius that I had come to love after trading in a gas guzzling BMW, was packed with a ton of little things and ready for the long drive to California. Cadee was the first to say goodbye. She nearly crushed my rib cage with her typically enthusiastic hug and I noticed tears had weld up in her eyes. She insisted she'd miss me so much she didn't know how she'd stand it. Abbey came next with a long, sweet hug that made me realize just how much I'd really miss her. We both fought hard not to cry.
During all of this Josh stood aside by himself, looking sullen and almost a little angry. Finally, when Abbey and I had clearly finished up, I turned towards him unsure of what would come next but not wanting to make the first move. After another moment or two, he walked quickly to me and wrapped his arms around me in a totally unexpected and fierce hug. It was the first time we'd hugged since that Christmas when he was almost 13. I hugged back but was caught off guard by the intensity of his hug. I could actually feel him shaking ever so slightly and could tell by the way his breath caught in his chest he was more upset than I could have imagined. His cheek rested on my shoulder and he held on longer than I'd been prepared to expect.
At last I felt him take a deep breath against me, release his arms from around my back, and then he took a step back. His face was flushed and his eyes looked red and watery but he was not crying. He looked at me hard. His eyes were unreadable.
"All right, well. Good luck, man. We'll all miss you." With that he turned, walked back in the house, and closed the door. He didn't look back.
I looked at Abbey. She only gave a slight nod and smile before saying, "he'll be okay. Don't worry about it."
With one more quick hug from Cadee and a kiss on the cheek from her mom, I got in the car, dropped it into drive, and pulled away from the curb. My stomach churned and my chest felt tight and heavy. I was excited, nervous, and also terribly melancholy. I wanted to cry and scream and jump up and down all at the same time. It was not a good feeling to have as I pulled out of their neighborhood and into traffic but I didn't know what else to do. So, I took my cue from Josh and I didn't look back; I kept driving and I didn't look back.