RAISING CROW

Chapter 7. Saturday Night. Westside Mall Cineplex.

Tom arrived at our house very nicely dressed. He wore snug fitting black jeans and a dark brown button down (long sleeve) shirt with a black cowboy hat and dark leather boots. Those jeans gave him a real nice looking ass that even caught my mom's eye. Plus I think Tom was showing off, maybe even flirting a little with my mother.

Okay, maybe he wasn't actually flirting but he was teasing both of us with his body.

I wore loose blue jeans and a Led Zeppelin concert t-shirt that Mom got for my seventeenth birthday. She actually got me a number of very nice printed T-shirts: The Who, Rolling Stones, Grateful Dead, Bob Dylan, Aerosmith, Waylon Jennings, Charlie Daniels Band, and The Outlaws.

He had the top three buttons on his shirt open which displayed a broad patch of upper middle chest, hairless, tight, mildly muscular, and olive skinned. I had a hard time not staring at his chest. His sleeves were rolled up, his arms were also hairless and firm. The months he spent lifting weights in school were on display.

The second showing of Body Double started at 6:50pm in theater four. When Mom walked in he quickly removed his hat, I noticed his hair looked like he used Pomade on it and his clothes made him look older.

Mom was entirely flirty, she complimented his clothes and hair like I've never heard from her before, then she said she wanted some pictures so we posed in the back yard and took a few shots and a few more with Crow.

Crow always acted like he felt threatened whenever Mom aimed her camera at him. He snorted at her twice, I sternly told him `CEASE' both times. He won't stop snorting because that's one of the ways he talked to us. Crow trotted off to my room as soon as he could. Grumpy old dog! Great Danes aged faster than most breeds so he started acting like a grumpy old man after his third birthday. It's weird how dogs sometimes seem to age just like human men, how their tastes evolve over the years.

When I said `CEASE' Tom had no idea what that meant so he replied, "Who what?" I told him I was scolding the dog to knock off the growling, he hated the flash on Mom's little Casio APS film camera. Tom said he never heard the dog growl, so I explained he used his alternate growl, the stare and snort. And he raised a few hairs on his back too. But Crow kept doing it so I reached down and raised his head to look me in the eye, and I bent over and in a stern voice I told him again "Cease it!" and then he reluctantly stopped. After the pictures were over he trotted to the back door to wait to be let inside so he could go pout in my room since he got scolded in front of a visitor.

We opened the Globe-News to the entertainment section and showed Mom the movie we were going to see, she had little to say but the photos looked racy. Mom took four more shots of us in the bright kitchen while we sat at the bar reading the newspaper article and everyone was smiling and excited, then she even put on Tom's cowboy hat! The review in the paper said the movie was sort of a Hollywood murder investigation with gay features and nice pop music. The movie contains a music video for the song Relax (Frankie goes to Hollywood, Relax (Don't do it) 1984).

We left 40 minutes before show-time. Tom said he really liked my mom as we walked across the driveway and got in his car. I tried to explain the idea of telling Crow not to growl at us, it had to do with control over him without being abusive. He was not allowed to show aggression to us for any reason, for our safety.

Tom repeated what I've said to him twice before, "The whole Grizzly bear in the home thing, right?" "Yep, Crow's big enough to kill us all, so we always treat him with control, no aggression is allowed. It's one of the few rules we strictly enforce."

"Yah, there's where I get confused, the whole play thing and real aggression, you really think he knows the difference?"

"Absolutely, play is a natural part of life for dogs, as puppies and adults, tame or wild. Dogs love to play.

"How can you tell when they're playin." Tom asked.

"When they're in real danger, in a real fight, they show physical signs: their tails straighten, the hair on their back stands up, their mouths dry up, they hold their heads differently, their ears are held back, there's a lot of physical signs which they don't show during play, even rough play."

Tom just said "Oh yah, I guess I knew that."

He asked why I scolded him tonight and I told him he hated the flash on a camera. And I had a plan to get a small camera and let him sniff it, open the door and see inside and maybe operate it with his toe nails, and rub it on his flesh so he could see it was inert and non-threatening. But since he already hated cameras it might be impossible to change his mind. Tom said that was odd, spending so much time to educate a dog.

"He doesn't like the flash, but disliking something is one thing but making a threatening gesture to the family crosses the line, he needed to be reminded."

"But you did it outside and in front of me." Tom pointed out.

"Yes, to him it was probably embarrassing but when he shows real aggression we stomp it down right on the spot. Believe me, he rarely gets scolded for anything, he tries very hard to be a good pack member. We know he dislikes the flash but it only lasts for a fraction of a second then it's over. It bothers my eyes too but then you move on and it's over. It's no reason to show aggression, plus he raised the fur on his back which is a warning sign that he was actually threatening Mom. The next step up is showing teeth."

I told Tom the more we educated Crow the better he behaved around people and at home. I might be able to actually rid him of his camera hatred simply by educating him about cameras. The hard part for the dog was finding a way to teach him what cameras did. That explanation ended his comments about dumb dog brains, except he said he never met anyone before who had such high regard for animal intelligence and their ability to learn. When I asked Tom to define learning he couldn't actually come up with anything that I agreed with.

I told him I did not remember the exact dictionary definition but it went something like: `Data input is retained and repeated back, and evidenced by a measurable change in the organism.'

I tried to tell Tom that we noticed Crow paid very close attention to us: he listened closely and watched for subtle body language. It's common for dog owners to report how their pet always seemed to know if they were anxious or depressed. But Tom didn't seem to care. He seemed to have forgotten already that he told us our dog saved his life. But I wanted to give Tom a way out, I think he had sex on his mind and not a movie or our dog.

We had a nice chat on the way to the mall in Maria's big Impala four-door gas guzzling Land Cruiser.

"What does she do? I forgot." He asked.

"She's a chemist."

"Oh, that's right," was all he said.

After a couple moments of silence I spoke again, "What a chemist does has a lot to do with math, she's constantly doing very complex algebra on computers. When you hear Chemistry just think Algebra. She does a thing called balancing equations, its part of how they predict chemical reactions." Tom replied with, "Whatever." I almost reminded him that he asked.

When it came to Mom's work I always pretended to not know specifics. In our family a major rule was we never discussed Mom's work. Since I couldn't answer his question I gave him an answer that he wouldn't understand and he made a smart ass reply. Like me, Tom has little appreciation for algebra.

"Didn't you say you were originally from Galveston?" he asked.

"Yep, both of us were born there but we haven't been back in three years. My grandparents live there."

We had more silence, and then I asked, "You started to tell me before, what happened to your father?"

He quietly explained that his dad died years ago on I-40 near Shamrock Texas and Management never dated until recently. I mumbled that I was sorry to hear that and the Father box on my birth certificate was blank. Then Tom said he died in a car accident on the highway but he never heard the entire story because his mother refuses to discuss it.

"You born here?" I asked.

"Up in Dalhart at a small hospital, my parents were up there for a horse show, they drove to the hospital when her water broke while watching a rodeo."

"Dad was a cowboy?" I asked.

"Sort of, more like a wannabe, Management is the big horse lover."

"Oh, that reminds me, did you get your results in the mail?"

"Oh yeah." He said and raised his butt off the seat and stuck two fingers into his back pocket and pulled out a crumpled piece of paper and handed it to me.

I unfolded it and turned on the dome light, it was the same form I got. It had his name and birthday in the upper corner like mine, I read down the columns at the names of the tests and across to the result and another column called `reference' but I had no idea what it meant but they were all negative so I folded it and handed it back but he left it on the seat so he could watch traffic.

"How's your scar?"

"The itchin's almost gone, and the scab is gone too." He glanced at me as if something else crossed his mind.

We had a few moments of quiet, we just watched traffic and I could see light on the clouds from the big mall parking lot in the distance, we'd be there soon. Way in the distance to the northwest I saw lightning in the sky.

He asked if I had a brother or sister and I said no, I was an unintended pregnancy. He said he was an accident too but he has no hermanos.

I told him I had pop money and a coupon from the newspaper for two free small popcorns, but he never said anything.

We parked in the same spot as last time, at the very end of the row, a spot with curbs and trees on two sides, straight out from the mall doors as far away as we could park, there were other cars parked near us. He shut off the car and stared at me, the silence and his stare felt a little awkward. We were so far from the mall entrance we were actually much closer to Frontage Road, I thought maybe he parked there to mask noise coming from the back seat. I almost chuckled when I started to wonder if all the cars parked way out here were full of people fucking in the back seats!

I looked around and remembered something Mom said, `...there's always a Crown Vic parked nearby...' and sure enough, on the next row over was a dark Crown Vic, but it looked empty!

Tom leaned over and held my hand gently in his sweaty grip, but I was way more relaxed with him this time.

He softly said most people parked out here to avoid body damage from other car doors. He liked this spot because it has curbs on two sides so only one car can park next to us, that `...reduces the odds of having some ass hole throw his car door open into the side of my car and making a dent or a paint chip...'

"Can I kiss you?" He asked, I smiled and said, `sure,' so he inched closer across the seat, our knees bumped then we leaned towards each other. He set one hand behind my neck and gently kissed my lips, then again a little longer, then the third time he opened up and slipped his tongue inside my mouth, we both sighed and whimpered softly. We Frenched for a few minutes, I was totally hard by then, I'm sure he was too.

While we were kissing I lowered one hand and rubbed the backs of my fingers across his exposed chest to feel his flesh, which felt warm and soft. It almost felt like he was trembling slightly.

Tom turned around and got out of the car and shut the door, then bent over and looked in the window and pointed at the back seat so in a flash I slipped over the seatback, which surprised him! Tom laughed and then got in the back seat and locked the doors. The parking lot lights already came on and it was getting dark out quickly now. In the sky to the northwest was a thunderstorm but the lightning might make our evening more exciting.

I sat with my back against the door. I had my legs spread apart, my left leg against the seat back and my right foot on the floor. As he got positioned I kicked off my shoes.

Tom leaned in and we sort of melted down on the back seat and like last time I was on my back, he was on top of me and we kissed again, which was very nice. Tom was a great kisser, very passionate and energized, I was the beginner trying to learn from him.

We spent a few moments looking all around to see if any other cars had love action going on. Tom sat up again and unbuttoned his shirt but this time he took it off and hung it on the hook above his window. So I pulled off my t-shirt and figured out we were probably going to miss this movie too, which meant all my comments about popcorn money probably sounded stupid to him, he probably never intended to actually go inside the theater. Then he reached over the front seat for a black zipper pouch and pulled out a sun screen and unfolded it across the back window which made it a lot darker and slightly more private in the back seat. The lightning was intense in the clouds and then we started to hear thunder rumbling too. We were only about 60 feet from Frontage Road (and just beyond it was I-40 and an endless stream of semi trucks going 80mph) so the thunder had to be loud for us to hear!

Note from the author: You can see exactly where they parked on gmaps: locate Westgate Mall along I-40 in western Amarillo, Texas. The mall is sort of V-shaped with one central extension shaped like an 8-sided stop sign. Immediately to the left of that wing of the mall is a long narrow green grassy strip. If you follow that all the way to the end furthest from the mall there is one last parking spot, which is where they parked every time they went to this mall.

Tom lowered back down on top of me and kissed me down my neck and across my chest to my left tit where he lip-locked on it and sucked it into his mouth. His face was squished against my chest so I pushed him off again and saw he had lots of saliva around his mouth, I re-adjusted my body position to aim my breast at him. Tom went back down on my breast and did whatever he wanted. He suctioned long and hard enough to cause a hicky, I let him do anything he wanted. He switched to the other side while I got super hard and horny. First, he slid his tongue across my tits to make sure they were well wet with saliva, and then he sucked on them while licking them with his tongue inside his mouth.

He finally let go and kissed me on the mouth again and started to push my jeans down. He managed to get them off and draped over the seat back, followed by the rest of my clothes until I was naked except for my socks.

Tom completely removed his jeans, he had no underwear on. He was also fully hard and had slippery thick juice all over the head, I could see in the light that shone in my window from the highway. He hung his jeans on the hook with his shirt.

He pulled out a packet of something and used his teeth to tear the corner and squeezed some on his dick. He was on his knees between my legs, his back was pressed against his car door, with his big rod stickin' straight out. He slid his hand up and down to grease the entire shaft but watched me the entire time. I watched in amazement as his muscular arms and chest worked his dick like he was sharpening his sword. His rod looked super hard in the light from the highway, it was a thing of beauty and more than anything else I wanted it in my mouth. As he dribbled more on his shaft the lightning flashed and made it look like the Gods were celebrating his beauty too, I nearly laughed. His dick was so well lubed it reflected tiny points of light, the streetlights over the interstate highway, as if it was chrome plated.

He carefully set the packet by the back window and told me to turn over. He kissed my feet a few times while I rolled over in the cramped back seat. He moved my hips to the edge of the seat and spread my thighs as wide as possible. My left knee was actually on the carpet.

Tom squeezed out the remaining lube between my cheeks. He moved closer, leaned down, and slid his head up and down and finally felt the spot and started to push. He put his hands on my hips while my skull bumped against the car door and my arms were under my chest. I felt a pressure in my butt as he slowly entered me. It hurt when he moved deeper, it felt like a new place inside my body was forming and something large and hard was entering my body. I was very afraid I'd shit the back seat but he whispered to trust him.

It took about ten minutes of small pushes but finally he penetrated all the way inside me then started to glide in and out. He accidentally fell out a few times but was able to easily get back inside right away. The longer he did it the less it hurt until after maybe 30 seconds there was no pain at all, except when I hit my head on the car door window crank. He whispered, "Fuck!" each time he slipped out.

After several minutes of humping (and him moaning with pleasure) he asked if I was ready for the main event and I nodded yes, so he kissed my neck and started fucking me faster. He held himself above me with his hands on the car seat on either side of my shoulders. Most of what I felt of his body was his hairless lower tummy against my back, and his hips impacting my cheeks. Tom was sort of in a push-up position above my back.

The mental image of a muscular-fit young Hispanic man fucking me was thrilling beyond words. Here was Tom at the peak of physical beauty and strength pounding me with his dick and enjoying tremendous pleasure in the process. I was so horny and happy I really cannot describe how wonderful it felt. Sometimes when he worked it hard he lowered down and just barely touched his big puffy nipples to my back. I felt two spots on his chest rub the skin on my back as he pounded me, I couldn't tell if he did it on purpose but it was fantastic.

Note: when Tom was naked and he stood up and relaxed, from his neck to his bush the thing that stuck out the furthest were his puffy oval nipples. So when he hovered over my back sometimes the only part of him that touched my back were his marshmallowy nipples. It looked like the more hormonal and horny he got the bigger they swelled.

Then he started to moan softly and rubbed his lips all over the back of my neck. He softly groaned `Oh fuck you're tight, you feel so good Robbie.'

His thrusts became faster and I heard him breathing deeper, he moaned a little then shoved-in really hard which smashed my skull against the door. He collapsed on top of me and I felt his dick twitch and he grunted with each spurt. He felt sweaty and his body trembled.

I recall during one of our private conversations while walking the dog that he said when he jerked off in bed he had two ways he liked it. One way was to stroke himself to an orgasm and keep stroking while he came. The other way was once the orgasm started he let go of his dick and let it happen without touching it. He said it spurt across his stomach and sometimes it got up on his chest and neck. He felt the further it shot was like a scientific measurement for how horny he really was. That was the day he told me that every time we had a date about an hour before I should go poop and use my finger to clean myself, he did the same thing. He also suggested buying a cheap enema bag and using it too. He said I could stand in the shower and use the bag to rinse out my rectum.

He eventually slipped out of me and whispered in my ear to turn over again, and then he sat up against his door to give me room. I ended up on my back on the back seat with my head against the car door and my legs spread, my boner hovered over my stomach. Tom was naked on his knees leaned back against his car door watching me, he had a look of admiration as he examined my body. After a short break to cool down Tom lowered himself back down on top of me.

He pushed his lips into mine and we made out for several minutes, then he kissed his way down the center of my body and took my badly aching dick all the way in his mouth until his forehead touched my stomach. It didn't take long until I felt it start, I warned him but he stayed in place while I came in his mouth. My contractions were very strong, one of the strongest orgasms I ever had, much more than I would have made at home. From the time he first took me in his mouth until I started to come I think I lasted maybe four minutes!

I opened my eyes to watch him eat my semen. When I got that horny it usually took me five paper towels to clean up. But Tom swallowed all of it then came right back to my mouth and we kissed again. I whimpered inside his mouth and we held each other together for a long time with our tongues in each other's mouths over the salty flavor of my semen. Having his tongue against mine was wonderful, he was the best kisser ever, but he is the only boy I ever really kissed.

For a while he became totally limp on top of me with our mouths open and pressed together and we barely moved at all. His breath blew on my cheek and we sort of melted together into one huge organism. It was the most affection I ever felt coming from another person in my life. I actually felt a wave of warmth and affection coming from his body into mine.

Tom finally relaxed and raised his face and panted for air and tried to cool off, I rubbed his muscular body with my hands and even ran my fingertips down his butt crack.

I reached up and grabbed the window crank and lowered my window several inches for even more cool air. The area around the car was full of the sound of semi-truck traffic on I-40 and the sound of rain and thunder outside. I could smell the ozone from all the lightning.

I think we went almost five minutes without speaking before one of us moved. I whispered `thank you.' I knew I had to mark my calendar, today was the day I lost my virginity and I was glad I gave it to Tom. I probably should have offered it to Daniel years ago.

We both sat up and leaned back against our doors. He'd rolled his window down a little more but the rain was coming down hard so we closed both of `em and watched the show and slowly got dressed. My mouth tasted salty and a little bit gooey. I saw what looked like lightning strikes on the other side of the mall parking lot, they produced huge boomers which rattled everything.

When it looked like the center of the storm was moving away I told him "I could suck your dick all day long and your tits for dessert seven days a week."

"Nobody ever said that to me before." He whispered.

I softly chuckled at what he said because I doubted it was true.

"What?" He asked why I laughed.

"Nobody ever said that before." Tom repeated, but I still thought that was bullshit. I told him, "Yeah right."

"No. I mean people touch me but only two guys ever wanted me more than once," he insisted.

In disbelief I asked him if he ever looked at his body in the mirror, he was sexy and reminded me of ancient Greek statues of the beauty and strength of young men.

Then I added, "Dan always wanted me but we never did anything."

"He's your deaf friend?"

"Yah but he's a very long story. I've known him since forever, he's flamboyant, deaf, and unbelievably smart."

"Why don't you?" he asked softly.

"He's more like a brother."

I gestured to Tom to sit beside me, so we both finished getting dressed and sat side by side in the middle of the back seat and I put my left arm over his shoulder and tried to slide my hand under his shirt. He reached up and opened three more buttons and loosened his shirt for me.

"I'd like to meet him." He commented about Daniel.

"I'm sure you will, Dan likes to approve anyone I dated more than twice."

"So let me get this right. In order to be boyfriends I have to be approved by your mom, then by your dog, and then the deaf kid next door?" He chortled. I laughed too and said, "Yep, that's pretty much how they think."

We had a few more moments of intimacy with my hand over his shoulder and my fingers gently rubbing his puffy-large left nipple. I drove my fingertips gently around and around and massaged it but he never got crinkly or asked me to stop.

Then I kind of chuckled and told him, "I think you easily passed two of three so far except Dan, but I'm sure he'll give the nod, especially if he sees you in your underwear."

"Thanks Rob." He whispered again. Then I told him that Dan was tiny, he looks like a 6th grade boy who recently started puberty, but his body under his clothes looks exactly like you would expect for a 12 year old boy, which is what he looks like, but we're the same age."

He told me, "Thanks for the vote of confidence." Then I told Tom, "I think your body is super hot, I'd love to take pictures of you someday. And I should say that this was the best date night of my entire life."

"That's a big compliment. You like my dick too?"

"Yep, you were very gentle. I think our dicks are identical twins." I confessed.

"Did it hurt much?"

"Yes, but it got better." I hoped he didn't take that the wrong way.

We sat there in silence for a bit listening to the thunder, inside the back seat was still occasionally lit by lightning. The rain had slowed to sprinkles. He mumbled that he needed to piss, I said me too, so we both got out and stood on the grass behind the car and peed on the grass. Parked near our car was a Crown Vic that I didn't notice before. If there was anyone in it they had front row seats to watch us pee on the grass. I looked up as I zipped up my pants and saw the one about two rows over was gone. We walked to our sides of the car but he gestured for me to get in front, so we sat in the front seat.

Then I remembered the sun screen in the back window so I got out and grabbed it and got back in the car and handed it to him to fold and slide under the seat.

Our stats so far were: two movies attempted, two movies missed, that's 0-2. Yet we had our best times so maybe it was 2-0. He cranked the motor and we slowly drove off. I saw he kept glancing up at the rear view mirror and then he said it looked like we were being followed by another car. But we made it to my place without any problems.

Tom asked me why I kept saying that Dan was small. "Because it's his most outstanding physical feature, he has long blond hair and he's tiny. His parents and grandparents are also tiny, I met them at a family Christmas party years ago. He looks like a little boy at first."

Tom asked me something very personal and blunt. "When I meet Dan if I asked him who his best friend is what would he say?"

"I'm not sure." I replied then added, "He has other friends that I never met, don't even know their names. He might say me, but he might not. We had several years when we rarely saw each other and that was when we kind of drifted apart."

Then Tom asked me how Dan would describe me. "I gotta think about that for a bit. He taught me sign language, and helps me with my algebra homework. I think he would say I am trustworthy, honest, and reliable. But he might say there are some things I am super dumb about, like girls, and modern society and celebrities, and I'm a conformist, and I'm very shy and not easy to get to know. I think he thinks I waste my time teaching the dog."

Tom laughed. So I asked him who his best friends were and he said I might not meet them because one got deported last summer, and the other disappeared last winter. He said he mostly hangs out with young guys from Mexico and Guatemala and some of them don't speak English. He said he'd rather not discuss them, but if I wanted to see the people he hung out with then spend a few Sunday mornings eating breakfast at Star's at opening time. I told him I might just do that.

He didn't drive very fast, but I didn't have to show him how to get to my place. We parked in the driveway that time and went inside through the gate and in the kitchen door.

To cut down on noise we used the little lavatory straight in from the front door. And Crow heard us doing stuff but he never boofed or even came to Mom's bedroom door.

Back in my room the only light we used was the tiny 5w reading light I have clamped to my headboard. We took turns getting undressed in front of each other, then got under the sheet, Tom was in front, and I rubbed the silky flesh on his chest for a while as we fell asleep.

Sunday Morning.

Five thirty AM my alarm clock went off, Tom had to leave right away but we had a few moments in bed together, I rubbed his stomach around his belly button but Star's was calling, he had to go. We kissed just inside the front door, I watched him drive away, my eyes shifted to the spot on the front yard where his blood killed the grass, and then out to the street where the cowboy died, his blood stained the pavement black. In my bedroom I emailed Dan, to see if he wanted to come over later today. As I walked across my room I stopped beside one of the rope toys the dog played with years ago, I picked it up and silently carried it to the trash can in the garage and dropped it inside. Then I released Crow from Mom's bedroom and put him outside.

Later that morning I noted in my journal that I lost something of value overnight. But as I wrote it I realized that you actually lose it twice: once getting and once giving. I still haven't really put my dick inside anyone yet. I don't consider oral sex to be the same as fucking. But I do consider butt sex to be an equivalent to vaginal sex, I've been told they feel similar except butt sex is often a tighter fit.

After I got over my empty feeling I spent the rest of the morning doing homework. Dan wrote back and said he could come over around 4pm. I asked Mom if he could eat dinner with us and it surprised me when she said yes. I emailed Dan and he pretended to be shocked.

All day I didn't shower so Tom's dried saliva was all over me like a trophy, like he was with me all day. And with his semen inside me I felt we shared our most personal stuff which made us very special friends in my book. It felt like he gave me a piece of himself and left it inside me, which made it hard to concentrate on homework. I added to my personal list to buy him a toothbrush and comb for my bathroom. Mom said I had a weird smile all day. I sort of laughed to myself that a weird smile was better than her telling me I was walking funny, like I just gave birth!

I stood in my bathroom in front of the mirror to check if I had bruises on my chest but didn't see any. I started to get turned on staring at my chest in the mirror my round flat red nipples turn me on and I love to stand in front of the mirror and gently rub them. If I rub my tits a certain way I actually feel it in my dick, like deep inside me behind my balls. It's like the sensory nerves from my nipples are cross wired to my dick sensory nerves!

I stood there in the mirror and lifted my shirt to look at my belly button and I rubbed my belly with one hand, slowly in circles, thinking that just inside me was Tom's DNA. It felt like he was still there, it nearly made me cry. I wished he was here instead of washing dishes and bussing tables at Star's.

At 4:07pm Dan strolled in the kitchen door like he had since first grade. "Hi Mom!" he chimed as he stopped to greet Crow, then they went outside to play for a few minutes. My mother liked having all my friends call her Mom. She thought she was the best mother in Texas, but I think she was alone in that opinion.

When they finally made it to my room I held up two fingers so he'd let me finish my reading assignment, he silently closed the bedroom door and got in bed and snuggled with Crow. When Dan came in through the gate Crow heard him and trotted into the kitchen, Dan got on the floor and hugged him tightly then ran him outside to play for a while. Dan sometimes liked to slap-box the dog which got Crow really rowdy and ready to play rougher. Slap boxing was one game the dog usually lost because we have two hands and he only has one mouth. After gently slapping his snout a few times Dan switched to just fingertip poking him on the side of his snout, but it still pissed off the dog and made him more aggressive. Eventually, Crow started talking loudly and tried to catch his hand, but Dan was too fast. The problem eventually became getting the dog to stop playing. Slap boxing the dog really pushed his buttons. The big risk with slap boxing the Great Dane was if he caught your hand he'll draw blood.

I did it one time with Crow and I caught one of his canine teeth in the center of the back of my hand and it got a big bruise and ached for almost three weeks.

I don't think he actually got mad but teasing him by gently hitting his face made him very aggressive.

You always had to respect those huge teeth, no matter how much fun he appeared to have. I suggested to Dan to always talk in happy sounds when he played rough so it didn't accidentally get out to hand. It was much easier to tell when Crow was happy than when he was highly annoyed, bordering on pissed off.

Dan always seemed to be very skilled at reading the dog's body language and stopped the game if it got too close to serious or if the dog started to get mad.

And most importantly, when Crow grabbed your hand in his mouth do-not-ever rip your hand free because doing that will slice your hand open on his sharp teeth, so let him grip your hand in his mouth until he lets go.

After their boxing match was over Dan got down and hugged him and kissed the side of his face and it seemed like the dog understood it was over, he did nothing wrong, and we all still loved him. In order to play well with Crow you really needed to let him think he won sometimes.

One of the things Dan tried to do was act like he got hurt and drop to his knees and hold his hand against his stomach and pretend to cry. Crow always took it seriously and came in close to see the injury, which was when Dan grabbed him around the neck to tackle him to the grass. Let me tell you, tackling a Great Dane to the grass takes a lot of strength and practice. You pull his shoulders down and sideways and he usually drops and lands on his side. Then Dan holds him down and rubs his chest and kisses the dog and he seems to understand he got tricked and then got pinned, and then the fight was over. It surprises me how well Dan and Crow got along, I think Crow well knows that Dan has physical handicaps, he's like the runt of the litter.

Mom said dinner was ready at the same time I finished reading the last page of my European History chapter. While I was reading Dan took my algebra homework and answered all the problems on another piece of paper, he did it in his head but I still had to show work. We sat at the bar and ate homemade pizza and pop and talked for almost an hour. I think Mom started to mellow out a bit on Daniel that evening, especially after she got to see how hard he worked to understand us.

Daniel mentioned algebra homework and I told Mom he did my problems but I still had to show the work, so he really didn't help me much. Mom reminded me the reason for showing work was so the teacher could see the process I used, which was key to solving algebra problems. I told her I hated algebra, it was mostly pointless. I used one formula we had to learn which I think was called Falling Body Acceleration. If you drop a 5 pound bowling ball off the roof of a building it accelerates the entire way down. We had to calculate the speed at two different times. I laughed and said we had to learn it but it was a waste of time unless you're a rocket scientist and even then you'd use a computer, so what was the point of it other than busy work. Mom said it taught logic and order to young minds. I laughed at her comment but she never got upset. She used algebra at work almost daily but she did it on a computer, she said she had to learn how to convert algebra into lines of computer code but once you got used to it the work went rather fast.

Mom said the type of math she did at work was like: sodium bicarbonate plus hydrochloric acid plus heat produces..... or predicting the result of combinations of complex chemicals without actually mixing or processing them.

While I cleared the table and re-filled our glasses Dan took out his hearing aids and showed her where the tiny batteries went, and the controls. Dan was very polite and respectful the entire time, I could actually see Mom softening up. Despite the long hair and occasional use of eye liner he was a typical Texas boy who could easily pass for a girl from behind, but not so much in the face. I reminded Mom to wait until Dan looked at her to start talking so he could watch her mouth, his hearing aids only helped a little with some voices. The two senses worked together to improve his listening skills.

I asked Dan for honest comments about our voices, how well he could understand us by listening. He coughed as if stalling then glanced at both of us and said he was very used to my voice, and his `copy rate' (his ability to understand what I said) was almost 90%, then he said it was about 70% for Mom. She asked if there was something she could do and he said: "No, it was due to the pitch of your voice, it falls mostly in the frequencies where I have near total loss." He suggested speaking slower and looking him in the eye when she talks. Mom took his comment to heart and said she would do it the best she could. He also said that shouting does not help, speaking slower does help. But he repeated what he told her that the frequency range of her voice is what mattered the most and lots of women's voices fell into the range where he had the worst hearing. He told her she sounded like she had a pillow pressed into her face when he spoke.

As a joke he told Mom if she could talk in a deep voice like Darth Vader he could hear her much better. Of course she had to make a joke and so she said, "Commander, tear this ship apart until you've found those plans!" Daniel laughed his weird laugh but I thought her imitation sucked. He smacked the counter with his hands as he laughed at her imitation, then Mom laughed too. Then she drank more from her beer can.

Mom asked Dan if he ever saw what hearing aids looked like from the 1960s and he said no. She told him they were the size of a pack of cigarettes and used AA batteries, which were kind of expensive. You wore them on a chain around your neck so they hung on your chest, they had one or two ear phones which were large and fit in your ear and had a thick twisted wire so they were super obvious, and they cost a lot of money too. She said her grandmother had one she saw when she was a little girl. That was back in the era when women's nylon stockings had a dark seam that ran up the back of their legs.

"So most women walked around with a dark brown line that ran up the backs of their legs!" Dan laughed and said he never heard that before.

It made me very happy to see Mom and Daniel talking like two friends at the dinner table, this was their first actual conversation after nearly a decade of ignoring him. I was glad he didn't wear eye makeup tonight. He was dressed like a normal teenage boy from the Panhandle but without a cowboy hat.

After the pizza was gone she got out a box of popsicles and all of us picked our favorite flavor, the box had orange, cherry, grape, and root beer. I had root beer and Dan ate cherry, Mom ate grape, it turned her lips and tongue purple but we never said anything.

During popsicles I proposed a small algebra competition right here on the kitchen island, it would be between Mom and Daniel.

I opened my algebra book and hand copied five problems (I did weeks ago for homework that already got graded so I had the correct answers) onto a sheet of paper and taped it to the faucet. I gave Mom and Daniel two sheets of paper, a pencil, and calculators, I gave them five minutes to complete any three of the five problems and had them start. It was quiet the entire time. In all honesty these problems were all basic high school level algebra. They were all: solve for X.

One of them was: 4X-10=X-7, another one was: X+2 over X squared + 9X +18, and one was: 13X-25=9X-13.

Two of them were very complicated for my brain, like: Square root of 3-X+Xsquared=X-2. I copied five and taped the sheet up so both of them could see the problems.

I heard pencils scratching and breathing as they both worked on solving three of the five while I watched the clock. After 20 seconds Daniel flipped his paper over but kept working. I could barely see his paper but it almost looked like he suddenly started over.

I gave them countdowns, "forty five seconds," then "thirty seconds," then counted down five to zero. They exchanged papers. He had two of the five done (showing work), she finished her third one with three seconds to spare. After checking answers we declared Mom the winner and left for my room. There was lots of laughing and I offered Mom one of Crow's ice cream sandwiches but she opened another beer instead.

Later, when Mom turned over Dan's paper she saw he had all five done correctly (but showed no work because he did them quickly in his head) which meant he had all five done in less time than she did one. On the other side of the paper he started doing them and showing his work but only got one written down. That was the day that Mom stopped hating Daniel. The lady with the doctorate in chemistry got beat by the deaf kid who wore eye make-up and skirts in middle school.

Back in my room we took our usual spots on my bed, it was time now for our real conversation. I sat where I usually slept with my feet against his feet. Dan sat on Crow's spot at the foot of the bed with his back against the wall, his legs across the mattress. Crow was in the TV room with Mom. He liked to lie down next to her and rest his big head on her lap.

"How you doin' bro?" I asked.

"Groovy, how was your hot date?"

I sort of rolled my eyes toward the ceiling and slightly smiled and nodded yes.

"You lose something?" Dan asked with a serious look and a slight grin.

A first I didn't understand him so he used sign language to spell the words. He laughed at me because to him he said it correctly, I needed to listen better.

I slightly nodded yes (once I understood his question) but didn't say anything. Daniel almost looked hurt. I reminded him he was my first love, but Dan added, "After your dog."

"Now hold on a minute. We were best friends for a decade before Crow was born," I said in my defense. He smiled and said, "I know."

"Crow is a grumpy old hetero man, he'd never admit he loved anyone, even us."

"Yah, well you tell him you love him all the time." Dan pointed out.

"Yes, I do, and Bethany too." We had a moment of silence then I continued, "Did I ever tell you how I taught him the L-word?"

"No." But he still looked like he was pouting.

I got up and put my books on the desk and started my short speech on teaching the meaning of `love' to a dog:

"Mom and I discussed it for a long time and decided that dogs were experts at subtle body language, especially from humans. We decided there was a way to communicate affection to a dog with body language and we came up with clasping our hands together and saying the word `love' with a special tone of voice was the way to do it."

"So I took Crow out back and had him sit. I got on my knees in front of him and held up one hand and used the fingers on the other hand to rub my palm and said this hand is Rob', and then I held up the other hand and rubbed the palm and said this hand is Crow.' Next, I held them up again and kind of shook them one at a time and said "Rob" then the other hand and said "Crow."

Next, I gently clasped my hands together (at chest height) and with a very special voice said, Love,' then with both hands raised (apart again) I said, Rob love Crow.' As I clasped my hands and smiled at him, I also said it in a very gentle baby-talk voice.

Dan and I looked in each other's eyes, I raised one hand and said Rob' then I raised the other hand and said Daniel.' Then I clasped my hands and said, `Rob love Daniel.'

Dan's chest started heaving like he was about to sneeze, then his chin looked like he was about to cry, then he raised one hand to his mouth and actually started to cry, and he looked away out of embarrassment. I sat there watching him react.

He actually wept for about one minute and I got off the bed and walked around to the foot of the bed and gently lifted his chin and used my shirt to wipe the tears from his face.

"See, it works." I knew Dan was tender because `love' was not something he heard much after he started his rebellion against conformity. After he gained control he slid off the bed and walked around beside me and leaned over and we hugged tightly for a short time. Finally he backed off and asked me, "So how was the movie? Which one'd you see?"

"Body Double."

He looked at me as if he didn't fully understand so I spelled the name of the movie in ASL one letter at a time and he said, "Ok." He asked what it meant and I said it was a Hollywood term for someone who stood-in for the actor when his face wasn't being shown, at a distance it looked like the same guy, kind of like a stunt double who didn't do stunts but had to have a similar size body, hair type, and overall shape.

In the 1950s movie Day the Earth Stood Still, they show the man walking with the boy in Washington DC with the Washington Monument far in the background, I think they were at Arlington Cemetery. That shot of them with the monument in the background never shows their faces because it was filmed by the second film crew and body double actors. The real actors stayed in California, only the body doubles went to Washington for filming. Dan signed that he understood now what it meant, but he wanted me to go on with the real story.

"And..." he said with his head on an angle if to tell me he wasn't going to ask again.

"We never made it inside."

"Ahhh, that's what I figured." We both chuckled. "How was it?"

I paused because I knew he was asking something really personal but I sort of owed him the truth. "His is similar to mine, maybe thicker."

Without any hesitation he asked, "And how's that?"

This was the first time Dan ever asked me to tell him details about my erection.

I tried to show him using my wide open hand, thumb tip to index finger tip, he watched closely then made the same gesture himself as if he wanted me to know how long his boner was. Dan tried to tell me he was like a bun length hot dog.

We sat there on my bed not talking while the stereo played softly, I glanced at the door, it wasn't locked. I glanced at the clock, Dan would have to leave in about ninety minutes so I could go to bed. I felt I owed him something.

Let me pause to explain something to you about us. Since we first became friends long ago he taught me sign language, we sort of learned it together. The first part was just the alphabet and numbers.

There are two basic types: one was the alphabet for spelling individual words, the other was two-handed motion gestures which represented phrases but generally not individual words. When you watched a speech with an ASL interpreter nearby signing it was never a word for word translation but it hit the main points, otherwise they could never keep up. Dan and I learned both but my vocabulary was small. At school I was often his translator, but he often got upset with me because I was never as good as him (and he was my teacher). His ASL was excellent and he's self taught. Lip reading was also self-taught. Lots of trial and error and watching people talk, then asking what they said.

I got off the bed and pushed two oops bags into my pocket, took the short leash off my dresser and motioned for him to follow me. It was time to talk outside, away from Mom.

Another note to readers: When you owned a very tall dog like a young adult male Dane most owners used very short leashes. One of ours was just a heavy loop with a metal clip on the end. It's risky to use a long leash because if they suddenly bolted the long leash gave them room to accelerate before the slack was gone. It's a powerful jolt when that happened it's enough to pull you down and dislocate your shoulder too.

In the hallway I softly spoke, "Crow." And heard him slide off the sofa and trot across the TV room. I clipped the short leash to his collar and we walked out the front door, down the driveway to the sidewalk toward the baseball field. It was dark and cloudy outside but comfortable in just t-shirts and jeans.

On the way it got darker until you hit the corner where the campus started, the corner of the student parking lot. We stayed on the sidewalk past Danbury Street, past the tennis courts, and the Phys-Ed building. Right near the apartments at Hatfield Circle we walked in the gate and crossed the soccer field, through the fences and onto the baseball field, which was fully fenced. It was dark with all the lights off except the street lights on the corner at Bell Street and Sandie Drive, but the light was blocked by trees around the baseball field fence.

We walked all the way to home plate where I unclipped the leash. He trotted off with his nose sniffing the ground. We moved to the backstop fence and leaned against it, Dan stood close beside me as we tried to watch Crow, a black dog, at night, on a dark grassy field only lit by city light reflecting off the clouds.

His collar was also black, but his name and our phone number were embroidered on it in reflective thread.

Dan leaned against me just like the dog. I put my right arm around his shoulders, my palm on his chest, he leaned his head against my shoulder. We've done this dozens of times before, it was our normal brotherly hug. I really enjoyed holding him that way, and he leaned fully into me every time.

Without asking I slid my fingers across his chest and rubbed it but his tit was impossible to feel through his shirt. Finally I found the tiny bump and rubbed it with my finger tips. Dan raised his shirt so I gently squeezed it. He inhaled deeply and leaned into me a little more. I felt my dick start to grow so in a few minutes I slipped my other hand down my pants to straighten it out.

When I felt fully erect I opened my pants and flipped it out into the night air, Dan leaned forward to look but probably couldn't see much. I bent my head down and whispered directly into his ear: "That's what I gave him, he's nearly the same as me." I signed to Dan: 5.5.

He reached over and grabbed me and slid his hand up and down the length while we both watched the dog in the darkness and saw him pee on the outfield grass, but he usually only pooped in the morning.

Dan held on with a firm grip, I whispered to him again, "That's what we shared twice last night." Crow came trotting up so Dan stepped away and looked around the ball field. I put mine away and closed my jeans, we walked out to the pitcher's mound and then to second base. I sort of caught in the corner of my eye that he had one hand down his jeans now.

It was really dark out here because a tree along Bell Street blocked the street light. "Rob" was all Dan said. I turned to look at him and saw his was out now, I stepped closer while Crow stayed nearby sniffing the ground. I reached down and grabbed his, also fully hard. It surprised me his was longer than mine but thinner, it felt like a bun-length hot dog (6.5"). I held his for a couple minutes. We stood there enjoying our time together. If there was anyone on Earth who earned the right to hold his pecker it was me. This was probably long overdue, but it was not really sexual, just intimate.

It seemed that line we've stopped at for years just got moved a few feet closer. I didn't want to let go for a while, when he tried to turn to look at something I refused to release him so he stayed beside me and let me hold him firmly. I felt him start to get slippery so I slid my thumb back and forth across the head, which made his entire body flinch so I let go but first moved my fingers between his nut sack and his thighs to I'd get his scent on my hands. I tasted his precome while he closed his pants and signaled the dog. Dan clipped the leash on Crow's collar and we started walking home. I quietly raised my hand to my nose to know what he smelled like around his nuts, which reminded me I already knew that from many years ago when we went swimming one weekend and did stuff then too. His precome was plain salty like mine.

We left the baseball field and crossed the soccer field to the sidewalk, down the street, across Danbury Street and Oakhurst Drive, then to our house on the right side.

Dan waved bye and walked out the kitchen door to get his bike and ride home. I took care of dog food stuff and went to my room and shut the door.

Around 9pm I called Tom and talked to him for about ten minutes then fell asleep. School tomorrow! We had exams soon. So I'll probably not go visiting at all next week. I emailed that to Tom and Daniel on CompuServe.

Mom sent me an email that she was thinking about us flying to Galveston for Thanksgiving. We haven't been down to see the grandparents since Crow was born. Or maybe I should say: we haven't seen the grandparents because of Crow.

It's risky having a Dane indoors with elderly people because they can easily bump into people and knock down toddlers and old folks. Another danger was caused by his long bony tail, which can wipe bare a table top and hit people in the face or smack men on the nuts which hurts really bad, believe me we all learned that one the hard way.

Let me repeat a warning about something we all learned the hard way: never underestimate the pain caused by getting gently cracked on the nuts by the long Great Dane tail, or how suddenly and easily it happens.

I explained to Mom on Monday evening Dan had no desire to be a girl, didn't feel he was born the wrong gender, he's just trying to look different so people took time to get to know him instead of judging him for his funky speech. She thought that was nonsense but accepted his challenge, a while later she apologized to me for being unfair towards him. "He obviously has a lot of crap to deal with that shouldn't exist, especially at school." But she was that way for over a decade, she had plenty of time to change her ways but never did, so as far as I was concerned Mom was still `guilty as charged.'

I told her that was where I fit into his picture because a big part of what I did at school is protecting Daniel, then I sort of stared in her eyes and told her she has no idea the crap I've been though trying to protect Daniel, like he was my little brother. That was when she told me how he actually won last night's algebra contest, but he let her take the honors when we were face to face.

I laughed and said it sounded exactly like the kind of stuff he does. Then I told her how he deliberately gets questions wrong on tests to get the score he wanted, and he always marked the same answers wrong. If you looked back at his school records you noticed on every test he took in every subject he always got questions two and three wrong. In 9th grade one of our tests had multiple choice answers but 4 of the four were correct, so he made a box #5 and marked in that square so he could get it wrong.

Mom also mentioned legal action against the school and I told her he said he's going to sue. She said his lawsuit could earn him a huge settlement. I agreed and said we already knew that, the fines increased soon which was why he was waiting to file until the last month of school. Mom laughed and said that was clever. I told her the principal and some of his teachers would be sued and probably get fired too. He kept a record of every time he asked for help understanding people speaking or learning ASL. They did none of it. "He told me it's no secret, he walks into the office with a notebook and asks for help understanding the statement the principal made over the PA system at lunch time today and they told him he had to pay closer attention. So he'd open the notebook and write what she said, the date and time and ask for her name, then leave the office. They all thought Daniel was crazy. I think by the end of summer they'll no longer be thinking that when they start to get an idea how much money they cost the school corporation and possibly the state of Texas too. Mom said it could easily run into tens of millions. They will end up paying for his college education and living expenses for the rest of his life. Then she laughed and said sarcastically: they saved a bunch of money! NOT!

Mom kind of got quiet briefly than said the more she thought about it they could be subject not only to civil proceedings but possibly also criminal charges for something like neglect of a minor, and that's just the start. Then she said it could bankrupt the school corporation unless they're insured. It might even bankrupt the insurance company. She thought some more and said that some teachers could end up in prison for conspiracy to neglect a child, repeatedly. Most of them will lose their teaching licenses and get expelled from the teachers union too.

Then she said the notebook he kept could easily become worth its weight in gold if not a lot more.

I asked Mom if she took the Texas GED test when she was in high school because they required it now. She said, "Yes, all high school students back then took the GED test. Everyone was required to take a GED prep course and the test. If you passed you could take your GED and walk out of school, or continue on to graduation. I told her it was still that way." She told me she took it in her sophomore year but graduated that spring, two years early. She started college at age 16 and was a graduate student at age 19. I think she earned her doctorate at age 24 when I was 5 years old. I had no memory of a time when I was in kindergarten and she was still working on her doctorate. She spent her last two years of college working at a business in Texas City, they made radioactive isotopes in a small breeder reactor for medical use in eastern Texas.

I have no idea what any of that nuclear crap means. She said the reactor is underground and is open on the top. It sits in the bottom of a deep pool of water that glows in the bottom. It's used for lots of stuff, including teaching university students learning about radioactive particles, decay, and their uses to treat diseases like cancer. Before I was born she spent two semesters at a place near Chicago where they had an underground particle accelerator. I think that was where she was drugged and raped at a dorm party.

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