Charles26

Well. Yes. Fifteen is not the easiest of ages for anyone. The death of the person you love most in the world and upon whom you have depended all your life is almost unbearable. Moving home, leaving everything you really remember if recognised

Happily Levi clearly has a strong enough personality to be able to think for himself. Julie seems to have been doctrinaire and controlling, for whatever reason, but she seems also to have loved her son and she has left him able to deal constructively with new ideas and challenges to old ones. He is willing to accept that his new - newly discovered, in truth - family love him (as clearly they do) and to respond to that love. He use of the mealtime grace to let them know how he feels is delightful and feels right, given his beliefs. And of course Thompsonville is working its magic on him. I wish we could all visit😄 All in all a lovely chapter. Thank you!

This is gearing up to be a great story. I hope all goes well - and, yes, it will be good when the people responsible are brought to justice😁

Nice one. Julie undoubtedly loved her son but she certainly didn't shy away from indoctrinating him. Was it really her own faith, or was it bitterness over Matt's choices? Truly changing Levi's mind will be very, very hard. As the Jesuits put it "Give me the child for the first seven years and I will give you the man."

Grief and joy... Perhaps it's a statement of the obvious, but two big things are happening in this excellent story. Julie dies and her death is a tragedy which brings with it so much grief for everyone who knew and loved her; and no-one more than Levi, who is bearing up astonishingly well given his traumatic loss and the bewildering changes he is having to cope with. But at the same time, something good has happened. Something which should have happened long before if Julie had felt up to it: Levi and his father and paternal family have met and are getting to know each other. And this, I think, is going to give great joy to Matt (and Luke?) - and to his parents, who suddenly have a grandchild that they presumably had long since given up any expectation of ever having. I hope it is also ultimately a joy to Levi and something positive to offset against his loss. Of course, they have to get through the pain and shock first. (I am also old-fashioned enough to have a land-line and though I do have a mobile phone I only use it for unavoidable security confirmations. I detest it!)

This is impressive - and very unusual. There are so many themes in gay stories, often mixed together. Some barely involve sex at all; some (often less successful) are about little else. Some deal with gay love. But here we have a description of gay desire, which is different. The hand job as the culminating sexual act is as basic as it is possible get but the eroticism of what leads up to it is intense and brilliantly expressed. A great piece of writing.