Charles26

Oh, lovely. What a wonderful chapter - what a wonderful moment in Levi's life. Just for now no anxieties, no worries, no griefs. Just the love of family and friends. Something to make life truly worth living and a memory to cherish: "I will not lose it before I lose the light of my days." (Anne McCaffrey The Skies of Pern.)

I think that Oliver is not a happy man - but that his distress is so total it numbs him beyond any sensation. This promises to be an interesting story.

Hank and Jake seem to have guessed at least some of the significance of Mannly's mood change -and the incident may well be, dare I say it?, another breakthrough... but why is Mannly trying to pretend nothing much happened? Surely he trusts Jake and the others enough by now to know they will want to help and protect him?

1 Kings 19:11-13 (if you want to be fussy) - the still, small voice of calm. Even the Old Testament has some decent stuff in it, I think, though there is no doubt at all that it also has a great deal that is really unpleasant. I could easily argue, for example, that the taking of Jericho and what followed is a good an example of a war crime as you could hope to find anywhere. However... No crises in this chapter but a fair amount of growth and development. There does seem to be something odd going on between Jimmy and Dan and I'm sure we'll learn more about that in due course. The strengthening bond between Levi and Matt is heart-warming but perhaps what hits me hardest in this chapter is the new information on just how very bleak Levi's life was with his Maternal grandfather (get it right this time!) and his mother. Bacon and eggs for breakfast as his birthday treat?! We don't know how much of it was poverty in the dollars and cents sense and how much it was emotional and spiritual asceticism gone mad but it is just so hard. I don't think anyone in these stories other than Tony Scott has much money but I'm pretty sure that Matt and Luke and Levi's new extended family more generally will make a real effort to ensure that Levi's sixteenth birthday is something special.

Well written - well done. Encouraging too. It seems that Levi is beginning to find his feet, and that can only be good. Not that I imagine things will go smoothly all the way from here😉. Levi's relationship with Tim and Guy is interesting. It's good, of course, that they too are beginning to feel like family. That may even help with the underlying problem if my guess is right. Levi has accepted Matt and Luke as his parents and I suspect that somewhere in his subconscious that means he has stopped thinking of them as sexual beings. They're just dad and dad-2. Tim and Guy are another matter entirely. They are older than he is, obviously, and I don't suppose he feels any sexual desire for them any more than they do for him. (All cool there.) But they are young enough and fit enough and openly loving enough that they are very clearly two people with an active loving, sexual relationship. And that, I suspect, registers with him in a big way; it's something that he wants for himself very badly but at the same time rejects as contrary to the "moral values" he has been taught. It's not that they are doing anything wrong; it's just that what they do stirs up the conflict in his own emotional and sexual turmoil.

It's true that we don't know much about what motivated Levi's paternal grandfather. It's also true that he did provide at least a home for his errant daughter and her fatherless son, though only from the time when Levi was already five years old. It's not nothing. But we do have some idea of the requirements and restrictions imposed on Levi first by "pop" and then by his mother. I think Levi has done amazingly well to have emerged from that environment as whole and as caring as he is. Obviously he did love his mother - caring for her much have been terrible near the end. But whatever upbringing he had it certainly didn't provide him or his mother with any real friends. Just some people they more-or-less knew at school or at their church. And I can't help feeling that his grandfather set the tone from start to finish.

All the way through to his second day at his new school and Levi is already entangled in a pretty extensive and sticky web. On the one hand, whatever colour of sheep Casey may be, and Levi has been comprehensively warned about the family (at least), the erotic attraction is there, potent and undeniable. We've been told that Levi has hit full-on puberty late (and his emotional asphyxiation by his "Pop" and his mother may be responsible for the delayed onset) but his new, emotionally healthier environment seems to have turned the process on full blast. Not the easiest context in which to deal with a first object of desire. And of course, while Matt and Luke and the others are not trying to "convert" Levi to homosexuality - a stupid idea promoted by the ignorant and prejudiced - what they are doing is normalising it and showing it as just another, admittedly minority, way for people to live and love. On the other hand there are Jimmy and Dan. Two very decent guys and probably good people to have as friends but since Jimmy has already said that he doesn't really have any other mates at school they are clearly not a pass to general popularity. And they are obviously close - are they a couple? Close enough in any case that Dan is becoming jealous on the first day he meets Levi. Has Levi noticed and has he picked up on the need for care? But yes, the final scene where Levi actually calls Matt "Dad" for the first time, and the resulting hugs - that was lovely.

Well written and convincing - no surprise there😉. Well done. I can't predict just how much grief Levi is going to get from the "arseholes". The support of Jimmy, and those like him, will be critical at school; the support of Matt and Luke and their friends at least as important at home. I hope that if there are real problems Levi will feel able to tell Matt and Luke, at least, what is going on and how bad it is. The image of children - especially adolescent males - varies hugely from place to place and time to time. Innocents, harmless until misled? (New Testament: "Suffer little children, and forbid them not, to come unto me: for of such is the kingdom of heaven.") Or uncivilised savages needing harsh discipline to civilise them? (Old Testament "Spare the rod and spoil the child".) Or just unformed and dangerous - The Lord of the Flies, anyone? But I think it is fair to say that they can be pretty brutal at school to anyone they see as different or vulnerable. And as Frank Herbert said in Dune, "beginnings are such delicate times." Still, I'm confident that Levi has the inner strength as well as the support he will need to settle in, make a place for himself and be happy. Good luck!

"Elite" is subjective, I think, and the associations it has depend on context. Not many people have a problem with the idea of elite sportspersons, for example 😀. And educated is not really a bad thing to be: it often helps in life! Apart from that... Yes, probably a breakthrough chapter. At the very least Jake and Mannly should understand and know each other better from now on and that should make life better for both of them. Meanwhile, I wonder what progress if any there has been in tracking down the men who attacked Mannly. No doubt we shall discover in due course. We can suppose that they were motivated by homophobia and it was a gay-bashing but we don't even know that for certain. Thanks for another enjoyable chapter.

So true. This is a very dangerous line of thought. A variant on survivor's guilt. Clearly, far from doing anything wrong he seems to have been a marvel; one of those undervalued, unpaid carers who get so little recognition. He needs to be reassured on this, as plainly, as often, as convincingly and with as much love as it takes.

Oh, wonderful! The Promised Land, flowing with milk and honey - and an allure both forbidden and entrancing. Worst, more probably best, of all there's a boy who has caught Levi's attention at first sight. Settling in is clearly going to be a challenge but equally clearly the biggest struggle will be within. I think and hope that in the end Levi will find himself, not oppressed by the ghosts of his grandfather or his grandfather's church but not overcome by a need to conform with his new environment and peer group: truly himself, decent and loving, whatever the details of faith and sexual orientation may prove to be. Thanks for an inspiring chapter!

As Churchill put it, “This is not the end. It is not even the beginning of the end. But it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning.” And a very good end it is too. Looking for some appropriately biblical metaphor I find myself reaching for Moses and the children of Israel in the wilderness for 40 years. Poor Levi. Poor Julie, come to that. Christians are supposed to hate the sin but to love the sinner. There doesn't seem to have been much of that love on display over the past ten years, though plenty of the hate (masquerading as morality). Over that time I suspect that both of them lived exemplary lives by small town moral standards; but was that enough? It seems not. No-one cared enough to attend the funeral. It's not said but I doubt that Levi got much help when caring for his mother as he watched her dying. Enough of that or I'll get altogether too angry. I just hope that Levi recovers from the stunting impact of that kind of treatment and blossoms into the best version of himself (as someone said!). So, a great chapter for which thanks and congratulations.

Disagreeable as "Pop" may have been it probably isn't fair to dump responsibility for everything on him. I'm quite sure he was, at the least, perfectly happy to keep Matt in the dark but Julie had had five years away from his immediate control and had said nothing to Matt in all that time. She could have done - she certainly knew where and how to contact Matt's parents even if she had no contact details for Matt himself. On a separate thought, it's painfully ironic that Levi and his parental grandparents were living in the same small town for ten years, all without having any idea. Of course, with his other grandparents so nearby they could have been a significant counter-weight to Pop and his teaching if they had known Levi. But then, I know at least one family (not my own!) where both parents lived in quite a small town by European standards (about 25,000 people) but the children had no contact with their father for decades after their parents' divorce. He certainly lived within walking distance. Family breakdown can be tragic outside stories as well as inside them.

They do say that the answer to a good question raises more good questions. There is an element of that here. Certainly Pop's reaction to Julie's pregnancy must have been pretty hostile. If I read it aright, he basically threw her out of the house and she fled to the big city for some years. Those were years in which she had a number of boyfriends and may well have been living a lifestyle of which her father would very much not have approved (though at least she avoided a second child!). And then it all became unmanageable and for want of any other option she went home and accepted her father's rules and requirements. I have the impression that this did not come easily to her. I wonder to what extent her failure to tell Matt was her own choice, and how much her father's. I think it is good that Matt should be able to tell Levi how much he (Levi) matters to him as well as to Luke and to his parents. Levi certainly needed to hear that. And I also think it is excellent that Levi should want, and feel able to ask for, a special place - or places - where he and Matt can talk openly on any concern's Levi may have. I guess that may have to go both ways in time. A very good chapter, so thanks.

Of course Levi hasn't met everyone yet, or been told everything. We haven't heard anything about Zack or about Tony's project for a shelter for homeless LGBT youngsters but in both cases there are background histories which, if presented the right way, could provide Levi with a lot to think about. Quite apart from which, Levi needs to find friends of about his own age if he is going to settle happily in T'ville. Come to that, did he have any friends "back home"? None has been mentioned (unless I've missed something!).

All things considered, Levi is managing amazingly well. "Chapeau" as they say here in France. He clearly still has major reservations about homosexuality and I don't suppose that will change soon or easily but he seems willing to listen, watch and (most of all) think. He also has the sense to keep his doubts to himself while he is working things out. A very mature approach for a boy his age. It's interesting that when awake he leans most on Luke, if anyone, but that in his dream it's Matt that he should trust and follow. But clearly both guys want the best for him. In fact Luke is standing up very impressively as a stepfather to Matt's son; so "hats off" to him, too.

One other unusual thing for Levi to handle: he is not only being required to deal with homosexuality, or sexuality in general, in the abstract. It is hugely personal and in his face. Most teenagers probably don't - don't want to - think of their parents or their parents' generation as sexual beings. Not a comfortable thought! But now Levi is introduced to the man who got his mother pregnant when she was barely out of school and then (all unknowing) left her as an unmarried teenage mother in a social and religious environment that disapproved hugely of such things. Not surprising if she became "more Catholic than the Pope" in her struggle to recover any respect at all in the community. His only real link with his father until now was that sexual encounter with his mother. That same man has had another man as his life partner since that time and they clearly have a sexual relationship. (Also loving, but that's another matter.) The other half-dressed men in Avalon are equally obviously sexual in their relationships with each other. Not that they are doing anything remotely inappropriate with Levi, but it is still quite evident. So Levi is not really in a position to pretend to himself that they are "past it" and that nothing of that sort is happening. It quite obviously is!

Levi's journey so far: he has met Matt and Luke and has broadly accepted their relationship (with some reservations), aided by the fact that they are family. He has also met Tim and Guy but they are not (yet) family and he finds their relationship much more difficult. He still has to meet Tony and Aaron, Scott and Justin, Zack and his partner (if he has one), Jess and Kellie... The whole works, in fact. So if he is going to stay with Matt and Luke he will have to make his peace with same-sex love. Of course, that leaves a range of options and it will be interesting to see where he ends up. We don't know anything about his own preferences yet, so we can't rule out his finding himself a boyfriend and living the life. Maybe. Otherwise he can wholeheartedly accept it and be supportive, accommodate it and just feel nothing much about it or (at worst) tolerate it. Toleration, of course, is not indifference; it's opposing some aspect of another person's behaviour or beliefs but accepting it because you respect the person. It's hard going so I hope he doesn't end up there. (Don't get me wrong - better toleration than hostility or hate. It's just not a very positive state of mind.) Meanwhile, Tim and Guy aren't engaging in PDAs as I understand the term. They are not "in public", they are in their own home. The four guys are two couples, not a group marriage, so by their own rules some things are kept behind the closed bedroom door, but that's their joint decision. The four of them may choose to modify their rules slightly if/when Levi becomes a member of the household rather than a guest but it's four to one (and the four are the owners of the house) so I'd expect 80% of the movement (at least) from Levi, not the others! I look forward to future developments.

Try again! 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, is recognised as being one of the greater stress inducing events in our lives. And having to reconsider beliefs you have held to be absolute truths for as long as you have held conscious beliefs is no easy thing. To cope with all of these things at once? Levi is coping amazingly well. Of course, as well as the story of Levi and his father and his paternal family and his father's friends, we have a recurrent theme which is always fresh because it is never resolved. How can a religion that defines itself in terms of love and forgiveness and compassion so frequently show none of these things to those of us who differ from the mainstream? Well written and genuinely compassionate, so good job and thank you.

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.