HARDMAN's MOUNTAIN
By
Rev Jesse Penfield Gibson, MDiv, DMin
DISCLAIMER: This story is fiction. Any similarities to any person, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
Complaints, compliments and comments to revjpgibson@hotmail.com
CHAPTER ONE
"You can just cheer up" AJ's mother said to him as they circled the parking lot at the Annapolis Town Centre, looking for a place to park. He just shot her a side long glance and rolled his eyes. "And I don't need a lot of attitude."
"Then don't tell me to cheer up" he shot back at her, quickly.
"You don't really have a lot of choice"
And that said it all. Fifteen and no choice. Really no voice. Well, she asked him, got his opinion and then decided for herself to take the job in Atlanta anyway. Staying in Annapolis wasn't even an option. No matter what, he would be leaving. He sulked in the front seat but was the one to point out the parking place for her. She pulled and they got out.
"It won't be so bad, you'll see" she said.
"Yeah it will. At least you could have let me drive."
She sighed. "Let's get you some clothes, get something to eat and you can drive home, okay?"
"I guess"
In her experience, gay males liked to shop. Johnny had. They had spent many happy hours shopping back in college and after. AJ didn't. Well, maybe with his friends he did but not with her and, frankly, he didn't seem to enjoy doing anything with her anymore. The trip down to Atlanta to find a place last month had been a disaster of teenage angst and sullenness. He was making his feelings very much known: he didn't want to move. He had been unhappy with the schools -- but least unhappy with North Atlanta, which Johnny had recommended, so that made arrangements and got locker assignments and a class schedule -- and with the condo. With it all. But he needed school clothes and they were on a schedule, a strange one admittedly, to get moved and set up in time for school.
Shopping with him was like pulling teeth. He wouldn't commit to anything but wasn't happy with the choices either. Eventually, they got it done. Sitting in the food court, eating chinese, AJ launched into his latest bete noire, spending the week with Johnny.
"I don't even know why I have to go"
"Because I need to be in Minneapolis learning about the new defibrillators"
AJ shook his head. "I could stay here with Laura instead"
"AJ, look. We are ending up in Atlanta either way. Piedmont is paying me a lot more money. A lot more. The house is packed. I put you on a plane tomorrow and then I head out. You spend a week with Johnny and Danny in the mountains, one last vacation before school, and while I am gone, they move our stuff and there we are. It works out. Besides you like JOhnny"
"Since when?"
"You used to" she said. "you loved him when you were little"
"I'm not little anymore. Just because I'm gay and he's gay doesn't mean that we are besties, like you used to be with him. He's not my real uncle. He's just your friend."
"Tashi will be there. There'll be somebody for you to hang out with"
"I don't even know that kid. I mean, besides, I mean who is this kid anyway? Isn't Danny gay too? How does he have a kid? And he's not even, like, American. Like Chinese or something. Tibetan or whatever. Dalai Lama."
"AJ, this is getting old. Getting old fast. What is so great about Annapolis? Why is so much better than Atlanta?"
"My friends are here" She just stared at him. He looked away and pursed his lips, breaking eye contact with her. "Yeah, you're going to give me that bullshit about making new friends."
"You will"
"New school. New people. And I got to come out all over again. If a girl flirts with me, I got to say 'I'm gay'. That's what I'll be: the gay kid. Here, I was their friend first, some of them. There, I'm just going to be gay kid. In the Bible Belt. I don't know anyboyd, don't know anything. Got to figure out the lay of the land. What if the lax team isn't cool with a gay guy playing with them, in the locker room ... I have to come out all over again, Mom. It had just gotten better."
She was silent. She reached out and took his hand and was surprised when he didn't pull it away. "Yeah, I get it"
He flew from Dulles to Hartsfield on a morning flight. She was flying to Minneapolis later that day. The flight was boring but as soon as he took his phone off of airplane mode, Uncle Johnny was steady texting him. The texting continued as he got his bag at baggage claim and made his way to meet up with him. He recognized Johnny from a ways away, fashionably dressed and lean, not bad looking for an old guy. But Johnny was looking through him as he headed toward him, and looking anxious.
AJ was practically on top of him when he spoke. "Uncle Johnny?"
Johnny face lit up with a smile. "Oh, wow. You have definitely grown since I saw you last"
"Puberty" AJ said. "Happens to all of us"
"Well, turn around, let's see" Johnny commanded, twirling his finger. AJ turned around like he was a model. "Got the ginger thing going on, tall, got a nice butt. The boys are going to be chasing you"
AJ laughed. "Yeah, right"
"I'm sorry I wasn't here when you came down last time. But, you met Tashi, right?"
"For like half a second"
Johnny ignored him. "And Danny showed you the town?"
"Yeah, him and Mom got along like old girlfriends"
"Good. He liked Sarah. So, Danny and Tashi are coming out tomorrow. Tashi is down in Macon for something. But we have a ways to go and there's traffic"
"Can I drive?"
Johnny shrugged. "Let me drive until we get outside the perimeter, then you can take over. Then I'll do the last bit in the mountains. How 'bout that?"
"Deal"
Driving through Dunwoody was more traffic than he was used to and, even though he tried to play it cool, nerve wracking, especially since he really didn't know where he was going. But he did it and as they got out of metro Atlanta, the scenery was beautiful. They stopped in Cleveland and Johnny took over and drove in the mountains to the cabin above the little town of Helen. The road there seemed nearly vertical and narrow before he turned off onto a path that was more level. They pulled up to the cabin, an A frame, and AJ just had to reconcile himself to a week of boredom. He had the full range of electronic devices and hoped for wi-fi. It's remote but it's still America after all.
They went into town shopping for food, a small town but very touristy - made over as a faux Bavarian village - and headed back. Johnny cooked and it was fancy, some sort of chicken dish with potatoes and green beans but not like ordinary food, and not the Mexican or Italian that he normally ate. After dinner, and after Johnny pumped him about school and life and stuff (which AJ mostly avoided answering), the kid settled in upstairs with a screen for company. When he was sure Johnny was going to leave him alone, he pulled up Pornhub, changed the categories to gay and pulled up a Helix video, the sound turned down. He needed a bit of relief and who knew when he would get another chance since they were going to be crowded in together.
The morning light came into the loft where he slept early, peaking over the trees and through an east facing window. AJ tried to stay in bed as long as possible, sleep as long as he could, but eventually struggled up. Johnny, it seemed, had long been up and there were some cinnamon rolls on the counter and some ancient coffee in a pot staying minimally warm.
"So, you're up, sleepy head" Johnny said. "Danny and Tashi will be here in a little while"
AJ grunted, shoved a roll in his mouth and settled into the couch and powered up to check social media. The truth was that he wasn't looking forward to it. Not Danny, so much. He had been an All American defenseman at Johns Hopkins, AJ's favorite team, back in the day and AJ liked him well enough, for an old guy. As adults go, he was cool enough. The problem was Tashi. He had only met him the once a month ago and then only for a minute. It was bad enough being in close quarters and enforced friendship with a straight boy for a week but he has hot. Half-Asian, big black eyes, tall, lean, big smile. He'd be cool about the being gay, of course. His own Dad is gay after all. But unavailable. Alluring but unavailable. It was going to be torture.
Late morning, the sound of tires crunching outside perked him up. Doors closed with a thump and then they came in.
AJ looked up. "Hey, Black and Blue"
"Go, Blue Jays" Danny said. "Did you have a good flight? Hey, Tashi put your stuff upstairs"
"Yeah, it was okay"
Tashi stopped and dropped his duffel. "Hey, so Dad says that you're on of those Lax nerds."
"What?" AJ said
"You know, Lacrosse. You play lacrosse, right? Like nobody cares about lacrosse. It's stupid"
"What?" AJ said, beginning to get angry.
Danny started laughing, almost shaking. "He's yanking your chain. He's all ready got a place picked out for tbe Tewaaraton Trophy"
"So you play lacrosse?"
"You're not slow, are you? They don't have to give you extra time on tests, right?" Tashi said
"No. So what do you play?" AJ asked
"Attack. You're a middie, right? Yeah, too much running"
"Yeah, it's way better to stand around half the game watching. You know the seats in the stands are better"
Tashi laughed and picked up his duffel and headed up the stairs to the loft. There were two twin beds and it seemed like AJ might have gotten the one the other boy usually used but he dumped his stuff on the other.
"It's way boring up here but they got stuff in town. Like a zip line and kayaking and stuff. You can use one of our bikes."
"Well, the wi-fi works" AJ said
"Really?" Tashi seemed surprised. "Doesn't always. I guess it's okay here except you got adults around all the time"
"Yeah"
"So there is a stream over there, goes down to the river, to the Chattahoochee, but just over there it's deep enough to swim if you want to go check it out" Tashi said.
"Yeah, sure" AJ said, knowing that it meant changing into swimming trunks. Of course, they were going to be in the same space for a week, so changing clothes would be inevitable.
He tried not to look. He tried some. But Tashi's body was brown all over, all bumps and ridges and grooves, defined muscles, and a firm ass. Hot. More hot than he even remembered. AJ turned away. It was going to be tough, not looking. A couple of days and no ... well, no beating off ... and it would be harder. He seemed cool, Tashi, but AJ knew that only made it worse. Changed, he crooked his head and they headed out, bidding the parents goodbye on a dead run, out the door and across the yard. There was a path in the woods and it was a steep climb up for about 100 yards but both boys were fit and neither were even breathless at the top. But then it was downhill through the hardwood forest and moss covered rocks to a stream pouring down hill over rocks and rapids to short straight segment of perfectly blue water. AJ looked around. It was gorgeous scenery. A little bit of heaven.
Tashi took off at a run and jumped into the water in a cannon ball tuck, throwing a huge column of water in all directions. Some of it splashed onto AJ and he stepped back, a little startled: the water was a bit colder than he thought it would be in the heat of late summer. Tashi's head broke the water and he broke into a broad grin. Gingerly, AJ made his way into the water, a little at a time. It was chilly and not exactly cold but cold enough that his instinct was to take it slow. But then his rational mind told him to just go ahead and do it. Dive in. Do it all at once. So he did. When he came to the top and burst through the water, he found he could stand upright and have his head above water and he wasn't that cold at all. Tashi was grinning.
"It'll make you balls shrivel up" Tashi said
AJ laughed. "Yeah"
"I can show you"
"That's all right. I'll take your word for it" AJ replied.
Tashi flipped over on his back and lazily swam away. When he stopped, maybe 20 feet away, he stood up. "When did you know you were gay?"
AJ crooked his head and looked at him for a second. He wasn't sure where that came from and he wasn't sure why. "I dunno. I always knew I was different, I guess. Then I figured out why"
"Yeah, but ..." Tashi said, looking frustrated. "But how did you know?"
"I wasn't interested in girls and I was interested in boys. What is it that you want to know?"
"Do you have, like, a boyfriend back home?"
"No" AJ said. He wished. He really did wish.
Tashi swam back over to where AJ was. "You know, it is pretty private here. I mean, there's never anybody else here. We could go without our swimming trunks, if you wanted to."
AJ jerked back. He was surprised. "That's not a good idea. It's not nice, trying to lead me on, you know. I mean, you're hot but that doesn't give you the right"
"NO, it's not like that: Tashi said in protest.
"I thought you were straight"
"I am" Tashi said. "I guess. I am. Definitely. But ..."
"But?"
"But I guess I am curious"
AJ looked at him searchingly, trying to figure the kid out. In one sense, it was what he had secretly hoped for. But in another, he could see the complications and pitfalls. But the kid is hot as hell.
"So we kiss and I give you a blow job or whatever and then you decide that you really are straight, and whatever friendship we could have had would be fucked. But Johnny and my mom are besties and we are going to live in the same city, literally like 5 minutes from each other, so we are going to have to see each other, at least some. And we'll be at the same school and it would just be fucked up"
Tashi leaned over and kissed him.
AJ jerked back, suprised again, but Tashi put his hands on AJ's face, pulled him gently back toward him. His mouth went to AJ's, his tongue slipping into the other boys mouth, using his lips to gently pull on the lower lip as he put his tongue back in and round. A long sensual kiss. This time AJ did not resist. He kissed back, his tongue meeting the other, his lips on the other, their bodies next to one another. And AJ was hard. Erect. Aroused. AJ pulled back for a second and Tashi leaned a little more in and AJ met him again and their tongues locked.
They stood there in the water, looking at each other. AJ was breathing hard. Tashi, black eyes staring at him, was too. Neither moved. Not for a second and they didn't speak. Then AJ moved toward him, so that their bodies touched, their groins were together, and AJ opened his mouth and kissed Tashi, slow and sensual. He could feel that Tashi was hard too.
"Wow" Tashi said.
"Yeah"
Tashi reached out and took AJ's hand and guided it to his crotch. He could feel the erection and AJ thought he would explode. Just touching him, being invited to touch him, even if through the synthetic fiber of his blue, red and black striped swim trunks, made him think he would explode. But as hot as it was, AJ wanted more. He wanted to really hold it.
"I thought you were pretty hot," Tashi said. "I liked that you were confident"
AJ took his hand and put it down the front of Tashi's swim trunks. He pressed his body next to the hardness of the other boy and kissed him again as he hand went down there. He felt the trimmed pubic hair. And then his hand on Tashi's dick. His hand on that dick. No barrier, no cloth. The dick was rigidly hard, thick and his fingers wrapped around his soft balls. And they kissed passionately. Tashi reached over and put his hand on AJ's crotch, but outside his shorts, then took it away and then put it back, like he couldn't decide. But he never stopped kissing.
"So... you got red hair up there," Tashi said with a sly grin, "you got red hair down there?"
AJ laughed. "Yeah"
"I don't believe you. I wanna see"
AJ took him by the hand and moved over toward the bank. The lack of a towel to sit on now suddenly seemed important but AJ moved toward a large rock and sat on it. Staring at Tashi's eyes the whole time, still unsure and uncertain about how far this straight boy really wanted to go and how much he could trust him, AJ pulled off his swimming trunks. His legs had red hair and were a little tanned but mostly freckled. His shoulders too. He was fair skinned and freckled and he ashamed of that, desperately wanting to be brown and tanned, but aware that he had a good body: lean, muscular, his pects and abdominals like armor plates. He trimmed his pubes usually but they were clearly ginger, just like his legs and arm pits. He was hard, his dick sticking up and pointing toward his jaw, and uncut. That too embarassed him in locker rooms and in the few furtive experiences he had had with other boys, all universally circumcised and it bothered him that his dick was, well, kind of purple. Naked and vulnerable, AJ sat there, looking at Tashi, who was wide eyed and a little slack jawed.
"Wow" Tashi said, staring at it. Slowly and shyly he reached out to touch and then backed off. Looking at AJ now, he reached back toward it and put the cock in his hand. He didn't pull his hand away but he didn't do anything else either. "I think you are bigger than me"
AJ stood and motioned for Tashi to sit. When he did, he pulled down his shorts, down and off and placed them on another rock to dry, and was completely naked. AJ thought he was going to die. He was all that. Trim and athletic, a triangle of black hair down there and a bit of hair running up his flat belly, and hard. And uncut. Both of them, intact. AJ stood between his legs and leaned over. He pulled the foreskin back completely uncovering the bright red head of his cock and leaned over and took it into his mouth.
Tashi gasped. He panted. "Oh wow!" he said
AJ wanted to give a good blow job and he had seen enough porn to have an idea what to do but not a ton of experience. But he took as much of him in his mouth as he could and planted his lips around the cock and slowly pulled his lips back up the shaft. The foreskin traveled with him and as he pulled off the dick, the foreskin was in lips as he pulled it taunt around the head. He slipped his tongue underneath the skin and swirled it around the head and then swallowed down again.
"Oh, man. Oh, man" Tashi panted. "That feels good"
AJ reached down and stroked himself. He was turned on by it, made horny by sucking off a beautiful boy. Whatever the cost, whatever the price or the consequences, AJ was getting lost in his own lust. He wanted to suck on that dick no matter what. Tashi was hesitant to touch him, unsure of where his hands should go. He finally rested them on AJ's head and played with his hair as he got sucked. He wasn't forcing AJ down or face fucking him, but just played with his hair as AJ did him.
AJ broke off and licked up one side of the shaft and then up the center, along the big piss vein. He put the head in his mouth and sucked hard as his tongue flicked right under neath the piss slit.
"Oh, no. Oh, no, oh, no" Tashi said, as he fought for air and moaned.
He took down whole and as he came up toward the glans, AJ wrapped his hand around it and pumped the shaft, jacking him as he tongued around the head. Tashi was making hard pants.
"I'm gonna cum" he said in a strangled whisper and tried to push AJ off of him.
AJ stayed. Stayed and sucked. Sucked and stroked himself. He was on the verge too. Too hard and horny. Then he went down and as he did, he felt Tashi's dick twitch. Literally felt the piss vein contract as he came. A strangled moan, a grunt, his whole muscular body tense and tight. Then his mouth filled with hot bitter cream as a geyser erupted in a fountain of semen. AJ drank it all. And he stroked himself, harder now and faster. He couldn't last and wouldn't. But Tashi was done for the moment. He pulled off and fell back a little as he flogged himself. His balls were tight up against his body and he too was tense and getting worse. The pressure built, it grew and then as he thought he couldn't take it anymore, a wave of pleasure swept over him. He exploded in rope after rope of cum, shooting out from his dick.
AJ laughed in short spurts of air. "Wow. That was something"