Preceding disclaimers as asserted in parts one thru seven of this story still apply. It's fiction, based on fantasized truths, gay, graphic, and explicit. If you are underaged and/or are offended by such, you know where the escape button is.
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JEFF (continued):
When we returned to his room, My thoughts raced with excitement. confusion, and wonderment. Halfway up the stairs, Jeff had grabbed my hand and it was like the ending of a movie, where the hero and his girl walk off into the sunset together, while the music swells. It's funny, but not at all unexpected, I could actually hear the music. It was a closing theme a la Max Steiner, or Franz Waxmax, or even Erich Korngold. They may write movie soundtrack, but they were today's classical composers, as far as I was concerned. No one in the 20th century ever wrote music with the depth and magnitude of John Williams, but that's years from now. We'll talk about "then", now.
Jeff led me to the bed, bent down and kissed me, and said, "What would you like to hear?"
"I don't know...but NOT the "1812 Overture"! You are too inexperienced for that. You might kill me!"
He looked puzzled and then the dawn of reckoning hit him with my double entendre. He burst out laughing...as did I.
"You know something? You are wonderful? ...An 18-year-old magical unicorn, that walked into my life today."
"I needed you today," I started..."I guess I needed you last week...I've needed you for a long time."
"Whaddaya mean?"
"Wanna hear a story?"
He nodded.
"Put on something by DeBussy and sit down."
He crossed the room and chose a cassette. It was "Daphnis and Chole Suite, No.2". It was perfect. As I sat on the edge of the bed, he came back and sat on the floor in front of me, legs folded yoga-style.
I don't know if it was my exhaustion from the events of the last 24 hours, or the mood I found myself in, or the lush strings playing the Debussy, or Jeff...probably a combination of all....but I slowly began telling him...everything...my home life...the situation at school...my feelings about life, love, music...Lance...Dan...even, the episode last night with Darren...EVERYTHING...things I had kept inside, having never revealed to anyone...not even my first love, Lance. I had to tell these things to "someone" and Jeff was the closest person I had ever felt as being a "soulmate". As I recited each detail in vivid descriptions, he slowly rose and walked to the double glass doors, which led out to a terrace overlooking the grounds of his "home". He kept his back to me, arms folded, one hand under his chin in a pensive fashion and listened. He was listening with the same intensity that I was narrating.
Maybe, it was because my life had always been lost in movies or maybe I knew the "Daphnis Suite" too well, but I timed my story to end with the last dwindling chords coming from the cassette player.
I finished. DeBussy finised. It was quiet...very quiet. Had I said too much? Did he base friendship on class distinctions? Was I out-of-his league? Would he ask me to leave? Maybe I should get up and make an unnoticeble exit. I knew what it meant when they said "the silence was deafening."
Jeff turned to face me from across the room. The right hand that had supported his chin, was wiping tears from his right cheek.
Who would be the first to speak. I had been rattling on for over 30 minutes with the music...Now, without an underscoring, anything that I said would sound differently. I would let him speak, I had opened myself to him...my innermost thoughts, desires, dreams, and fears, I felt I was in a huge outdoor arena, stark naked.
"Come here," he beckoned in almost a whisper.
I began my Hester Prynne march to the stake as I moved toward him. I got within two feet, and he stretched out his arms and locked his hands around the back of my neck, still keeping me at arms-length and dropped his head so that his forehead was touching mine, looking eye to eye.
He spoke. "Little buddy, you've had it bad...really bad..." . A pause, "But it's about to get better...It's about to get better for me , too...You told me your secrets, just now. I told you a big one about me, this afternoon, but you didn't know it...Before this afternoon...with you...in the shower...I was a virgin...and I don't mean just sexually...I was a virgin of life...love...feelings. You see?...I've never loved. I never knew how...I never had anyone I wanted to love...as long as I had my music, I didn't need anything or anyone in my life...On one short hour on a piano bench, in Miss Greene's studio, I "felt" for the first time in my life...and in one short hour in the shower this afternoon, I knew what it meant to revel in sexual pleasure...and just, for the first and only time in my life I know what it feels like to love...."
"I'm not looking for sympathy. I don't need sympathy if you thought that was why I told you what I did."
"Shut up", he stopped me, "I won't give you any fucking sympathy. I want to give you my love...if you'll take whatever I have to give."
"I don't know. This is sudden and I don't know how you will feel...like tomorrow, or Monday, when I'm not here...it might just be the "moment" you're caught up in."
"No, Mark, if anything, I'm "caught up" in you...Will you teach me how to love? You see...I probably need you MORE than you need, me...so with a great fear that you will reject me, I'm offering myself to you...as a friend...a brother...a lover, boyfriend, whatever you want ro call it,..I'm offering "Jeff" to you.
I know that years can be covered in an hour and forty-five minute motion picture,,,but in the last 36 hours, I had lived a whole lifetime of change. I wanted him. I wanted him so badly...but I loved Lance, too,..then what about Dan, who had rescued me twice, in one week? Aw, hell, go with the flow!!..I reached for his waist and pulled him close to my body,
"O.K., Love me Jeff...let me love, you..." I kissed him. I thought I was re-creating the scene from, "A Place In The Sun", where Elizabeth Taylor and Montgomery Clift played two star-crossed lover, total opposites, who feel in love and bedamn with the consequences. I use to hold my breath every time I saw their first kiss...THIS was almost the same situation...except I was lost in THAT kiss...with...Jeff. I could even hear the swell of the orchestra.
Everything Jeff had been holding back for 21 years was being passed on to me and through me in this moment of passion. That was the word..."Passion". This wasn't like Lance...Dan...no, this was different...and what did it mean? We were from different worlds with a musical common bond...where could this lead...when would this end?...I mean, things like this don't happen to people like me. I was lost but I was "found" in his embrace.
"Can you spend the night?"
"Do you think it, wise...what about your folks?"
"Listen, guy, if nothing has happened to me in tweny-one years, why do you think they would have any reason to be suspicious?...Can you call your Mom?"
It was after 11:00PM. Mother B.E. (before eleven), the sweet, loving, caring mother would be gone...No Mother A.E. (after eleven) the drunken creature with the sarcastic tongue, would answer the phone..Shit! I would do my job as "dutiful, God's Favorite's, son and call her so that she would worry...if she were sober enough to remember. I called her and told her I was busy working on a piano project with another of Miss Greene's students and we would probably rehearse long into the night. She bought it, but not before blurting out, "Just don't suck his dick!"...It was so awful. She would NEVER even think a dirty thought during the B.E. hours. I remember the first time she slipped and said the word, "pregnant" in front of me. She had blushed for an hour and still couldn't look at me. You know, now, why I don't drink??? Believe me, my family drank MY share.
I had "permission". (I guess). I told Jeff the good news he had wanted to hear.
"No more sex, tonight, please, let's just to bed, hold each other and explore our feelings...Turn on the TV, and we'll watch a late movie."
We stripped off our clothes, got under a sheet, both naked and he let me use is right arm and shoulder as a prop pillow as we watched the news, to be followed by Saturday Night at the Late Show. I nestled into his "mother's cradling arm, and heard the Warner Bros. fanfare and saw the golden WB heralding the main feature...and then after I heard the first eight bars of a Max Steiner theme, I sat straight up in disbelief...God as my Judge...the fucking motion picture was, "Battle Cry". Goddamn, was this movie to follow me and haunt me the rest of my life?
"What's the matter?", Jeff asked.
"Nothing, I thought I was about to sneeze." I don't believe I had mentioned "Battle Cry" in my monologue...and I surely wouldn't do it now. We lay and watched the "favorite", as any other married couple would...just relaxing and enjoying the story...that is, until Tab Hunter put on that LOOSE bathing suit and I got my erection, right on cue. I reached for Jeff's cock. That was the last scene I watched.
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The next week was euphoric. I went to school and Friday came in a flurry. Jeff had called me every night. We had plans to go to a play on Friday night, and after our lessons on Saturday, dinner at home with his parents and then a "movie", ha, ha, ha.
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It was the final week of school. Soon, I would never see these people again. My ego was filled with the kind of phoniness, I had always hated...but why not? I was part of the "Theater" Crowd...spending my weekends in a posh mansion on McClelland Ridge and going "steady" with a doctor's son. God, it they only knew. But then, something unexpected happened on Tuesday, before graduation on Friday. It was "Awards Day" at school. I had been named, best actor, and most talented in the annual. I had one two music awards, which was taken for granted. The last award was the highest honor given...The MacKenzie-Ackers Award, given for leaderhip, scholarship, and service to the school. It was voted on by the entire student body of 1600 students. After my scene in the hallway with Kyle, I knew I didn't stand a chance...but as they announced the name...I couldn't move...they had given it to me. There was a buzz of whispers across the auditorium. Had we all heard the same thing. Mike Curtis nudged me and sais, "Get up Mark, get up and go to the stage."
Feeling as if I were Susan Hayward in "I'll Cry Tomorrow". I stood up, threw my shoulders back slowly and strode down the aisle, the applause building with each step I took, to the point they were finally all standing. I made have died and gone to hell but I had won the "Oscar", selected by my peers. I never knew how this happened and I didn't want to know. I was just so proud and grateful. I just wish one of my parents had been there...Jeff had been standing in the back. How did he know?? I didn't?
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Jeff and I had a wonderful summer, swimming, playing the twin pianos, (he had had a second one added to his music room). My thoughts were divided...I had sent my letter of acceptance to the University of Miami...I had that and medicine, on one hand...on the other was a life filled with everything a person could wish for, a life with Jeff. Jeff would be graduating from the University, here, next June. He wanted me to stay and enroll as a freshman and live with him. "Lady or the Tiger"...which door?...Either way, I couldn't lose...at least I did't think so.
At Jeff's encouragement, he took me to visit his fraternity house, where my eyes popped out at his "brothers" and their bulges. He chose ME when he had all these to choose from??? I met with the new pledgemaster, Tommy, a little short, but oh, so cute. He had raven black hair, in a flat-top, and blue eyes that would rival Paul Newman's. And then I met Rich, the new fraternity president. He was about 6'3". (another blonde), flat-top, and the most perfect teeth that I knew Madison Ave. would pay a fortune for that smile. He took my hand to give it a shake, and it was like electricity going through my central nervous system. Rich was a dorm student. His family lived in West Palm Beach. If I stayed and went to college here, would they even consider pledging me? If I went to Miami, on the other hand, NO ONE would know I came from the poor side of the tracks. To a kid of 18, social status is VERY important.
As August drew to an end. It was decision time. I went in and told my mother, I had decided to go to Miami. Then the shit hit the ceiling fan.
"NO, YOU'RE NOT!! I can't afford to send you to a rich school in Florida, a thousand miles away. with doctor's and lawyer's sons. You KNOW your place, and that's not it. I've been over to the state University, enrolled you, picked out your classes, and THERE is your education...take it or leave it!!!" as she threw the class selection cards at me. There HAD been a tiger behind one of those doors.
I yelled, "Fuck you!!", as I ran out the door. I fumed and started walking. I had walked about a mile when I saw Mike Curtis driving by.
"Where you going?" Good old Mike, he always seemed to be there.
"I..,uh...Mike, could you give me a lift?"
"Sure, where you headed?"
"Top of McClelland Ridge, if you'll take me there."
"Hop in."
When we reached the house. I thanked him and ran to ring the door on Jeff's house.
Jeff opened the door with a great smile. "Hi, Sport!" He looked around "checking" and gave me a quick kiss.
I smiled, not letting on that the greatest decision I would ever have to make, had just been "made" for me.
"What's wrong? You make your decision?"
"Yeah", I lied, "I want to stay and go to the University with you."
"You have just given me the greatest news of my life. Let's go upstairs, clean up, and go down to the frat house and celebrate. I want to show you off to all the guys so, that they'll love you like I do. THEY BETTER NOT, THOUGH!" he laughed.
Just what I needed a cellophaned celebration.
"You made a big impression on Rich. Did you he was with me the night I heard you play the 'Rhapsody'?"
Score one for me. I never thought anyone liked ME, just my piano playing. I was pleased that "something" about me had impressed Rich.
"Tommy said you would be great in his pledge class and help the pledges and actives with the 'ALL FRAT. ALL SING', in the spring."
Score two for me. (or a least score two for my musical ability). I knew I liked Tommy, almost instantly, I looked forward to looking into Rich's blue pools, again.
"I'll call the "house" and see who's down there."
He phoned, made a few inquiries, laughed, and came back, still bubbling, over "MY" decision.
"Change of plans, guy. Rich wants us to meet him at the Rathskellar for a pitcher of beer and a German sausage sandwich. I choked. Where the fuck was "Tinkerbell". Why did she just appear and flick her wand and make me disappear...I mean, like, forever?
Rich and Jeff were both drinking age. I didn't want to risk embarrassment of being carded so I settled on a Pepsi, refusing the offered pilsner. Shit, I NEVER wanted to drink again as long as I lived.
Yep, there they were. Those sparkling blue eyes. Rich was even more handsome than I had first noticed. Watch it, Mark, you've got a perfect life with Jeff, don't fuck it up.
I had a this strange feeling that Rich was staring at me...inspecting me...sizing me up...CRUISING ME? Get real. He's B.M.O.C., I was just imagining things again. Boy, I surely had come a long way in two five months. I wondered how Lance was surviving in the Army. ( He had "GONE" a long way in five months. No thanks to me).
"Mark, we're having unofficial "Rush Party, next Friday night. Can you get a date and come?...Maybe you and Jeff can double date."
Where was Brenda,,,better yet, where was Tinkerbell. Across the old beer garden, I sensed two more eyes staring at me. At the bar, stood, Dan. He smiled and raised his glass of Michelob, just high enough for me to observe is "toast". He gave me a nod and a wink. If Dan comes over, I'll just crawl under the table and look for horseshoes. He didn't...and fortunately, I didn't have to.
"I'll find him a date, Rich", Jeff assured.
It hadn't occurred to me that fraternities meant socializing, girls, drinking, girls, money, girls. Maybe I could dress up in a litte pink ruffled pinafore and go as Jeff's date. Think anyone would notice?
Jeff knew these two girls from the country club with the combined IQ of room temperature. He always "dated" one of them when he had to produce a date. I remember later when I first saw Neil Simon's, "The Odd Couple" that Neil must have met and written these two socialites and called them, the Pigeon Sisters.
Jeff and I, with female adornments on our arms, went to the party. We had planned to stay about an hour, make our excuses and leave. But after about 20 minutes, one of the brothers asked Jeff to entertain them with a song on the piano.
"Only if Mark will play a duet with me."
Play what?... Rachmaninoff?... and shoot cum all over the keyboard?
Jeff grabbed my hand and pulled me to his baby grand in the corner of the living room. Let's show 'em what we worked on all summer. We sat down and started playing Gershwin's Variations on "I Got Rhythm". which led into OUR variations. During the summer, Jeff had introduced me to jazz...Brubeck, Peterson, Tatum, Evans, and I loved it. It was a challenge and it was interpretive. I could ad lib and make up my own arrangement and show how the music made me feel. I was getting good....better than Jeff on jazz.
We were a hit! Now all the "actives" knew me. I was a cinch to be pledged. That's just the way Jeff and Rich had planned it, I found out later. Jeff was so pleased and proud of the way I was accepting his lifestyle. I knew that he had fallen in love with me, and if I were to admit it, I loved him, too.
I managed to change some of my "chosen" classes and settled on things like, Philosophy, Psychology, World Religions, English, Drama, and Art Survey...NO MUSIC. I would show her!! As most college freshmen, my favorite subject was Fraternity 101. The "actives" all liked me, and besides Jeff, I had made two good friends, Rich and Tommy. When the pledge invitations went out, I was a shoo-in. Jeff said that I could live with him at his house or he had talked to Rich, explained my home situation, and I could share a room with one of the brothers. I had heard that Rich needed a roommate. Oh, boy...the life of an 18-year-old...decisions, decisions...life shouldn't be so wonderfully complicated.
I knew that if I roomed with Rich at the frat house, he might discover my new lifestyle and risked being found out and thrown completely out of the Greek Society. Gays were taboo. So I had issued my Emancipation Proclamation and I would go to her choice of schools, but I wouldn't be living at home. I would be living on the Ridge. I didn't even wait for an argument. I packed my duds and moved. It was only a week later that Jeff had taken every stitch of my clothed, built a bonfire and burned my entire wardrobe. He took me downtown and bought me a trousseau...underwear, pants, shirts, suits, shoes, overcoats, even a tuxedo. All new, and all very expensive with labels I'd only seen in magazines. His parents, still having no knowledge of our real relationship, opened their arms and their house to me. They were going to remodel the room next to Jeff's for me, but he said, "No, I grew up without a brother...now I have one, and I want to share brotherly things with him." They conceded, but they bought him a new king size bed or us...Maybe they did suspect something,
It was Friday night, September 29th, the night of the first football game. I was at my new home, showering and getting ready for my first Siss Boom Bah! Jeff had driven up to Carrolton to deliver some packages to one of the alums houses. He was due back around 7:00, to pick me up for the eight o'clock game. I explored the bedroom, looking at his dresser with all the colognes, his bookcase filled with the classics, his records and tape collection...large enough to open a retail store. I put on a tape of slow jazz piano, by Bill Evans. Remember how Lana Turner felt when she had become a star in "Imitation of Life"? or the way James Mason had "given" Judy Garland, Hollywood in, "A Star is Born"?...That was I, It was the greatest feeling of satisfaction and accomplishment.
It was 7:30, and still no Jeff. I knew how crowded I-75 could be on a Friday night, so I wasn't too concerned...until 8:15...no Jeff and no phone call. Now I was beginning to worry,
"Mark?" his mother called from the foot of the stairs, "Have you heard from Jeff?"
"No ma'am", I was just about to come down and ask you the same thing."
We waited...we waited until 10:30 and the doorbell rang...it was the Georgia Highway Patrol.
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Jeff had been killed instantly. No pain, no suffering. His car had been hit by a semi. causing it to roll down an embankment.
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The funeral was on the following Tuesday. All the brothers and pledges attended. I sat with Jeff's parents. They were destroyed but stalwart. They wouldn't cry...which meant I couldn't cry. The service was completed at the graveside, and Rich came over and put his arm around my shoulder.
"What are you going to do now?" he asked quietly. "Will you be staying with Jeff's parents?"
I didn't know. What was I going to do now? There was no reason for me to stay at their home now. I couldn't nor wanted to replace their one and only son. I knew they would offer,,,and I knew I had to refuse.
"If you like, you can come and sleep in my room at the frat house, tonight," Rich offered.
"What...oh...yeah...I could do that...". I paused. "I would like to do that."
"Come on, get in my car and I'll drive you."
I went over to the grave and gave Jeff's parents a hug. I had never hugged either of parents the way I hugged them.
"Are you all right," his mother asked.
"I'm fine,,,and the two of you?".
"You were his life, Mark..."
"I know... I'm going down to the Kappa house and be with some of the brothers."
She smiled and gave a nod of approval.
When Rich and I arrived, he got out of the car, came around and opened the car door for me...like the grieving widow.
He took my elbow gently and escorted me to the second floor to his room. It was small with two twin beds and two three-drawer dressers, two tiny desks, a TV, a portable hi-fi with pictures and pennants plasterd on all the walls.
Once inside, he closed the door behind him. I looked around the room, thinking where I had been living for the past three weeks and smiled. I turned to look at Rich. He was standing with his back leaning against the door and waiting for me to say anything.
He spoke first..."Jeff was in love with you..."
"You knew?"
"The way you, two, looked at each other...how could I not know?"
"Do you think any of the other brothers know?"
"It doesn't matter...would you like to move in with me?"
"I can't, Rich...I'm gay."
"I know...and I'm gay, too."
"I always envied you. You had won the prize,.. Jeff... The prize I use to lie here and dream about, every night,"
"You loved him?"
"That didn't matter, either,...Jeff loved you."
"Oh Rich" I uttered as I finally broke down and let the floodgates open. The tears I had held inside for four days were coming forth in one monstrous gush.
He walked over and put both arms around me...trying to comfort and make me feel safe.
As I cried into his shoulder, he kissed me lightly on the forehead.
Without looking up, I nodded my head and said, "Sure, Rich, I'll move in with you".
I continued to cry and he stroked my hair...
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(to be continued in Part Nine: "RICH"