underthehoodster

Part III Choices Prologue Whatever crisis--real or perceived, precipitated this project--this Chronicling Of My Youth as it were--it has now become a full blown obsession. I spend evenings locked in my study: recalling, reliving, writing and editing. I'm not sure it's healthy, although it has caused me to look at my current situation through slightly different eyes. It may be too soon to tell, but what started as a form of self-therapy might in some ways actually be having some

Perry (A fairly rich kid who always seems to be in some sort of trouble) and Jesse (A poor kid who is a blackbelt and has a bad past reguarding his previous schools and his father) find love for each other after Jesse moves to Perry's school from another city.

I had the strangest dream that night. It started out pleasantly enough, with Jesse and I in my bedroom, both wearing our school uniforms. Neither one of us spoke, and there was some soft pop music playing in the background. Jesse just stood there with a little smile on his face, his crystal blue eyes twinkling in a way that could only happen in a dream. I approached him and pulled off his white polo shirt. Then I undid his khaki pants and pulled them down to his ankles. Jesse slipped off h

Part II Discoveries Chapter 7 Spending The Night Part II I tossed the soiled paper towels in the kitchen trash and came back to stare at Jesse, who was now dozing peacefully. His beautiful face took on even more angelic characteristics as he relaxed in sleep, and I wanted nothing more than to press my lips to his as if it was to be our very first kiss. Reluctantly, I decided not to wake him up. I felt uncomfortably hot, sweaty and sticky, soiled by our wildly playful and passiona

Part II Discoveries Chapter 6 Spending The Night-Pt. I When we got back to the apartment, Jesse poured me a cold glass of water from a pitcher in the fridge. I felt myself finally starting to calm down from the incident at the basketball court. Maybe I was just acting like a little kid. Despite the unpleasantness of my parent’s divorce, I had led a mostly sheltered existence. Jesse had come from a different world, a world of violence, mistrust, prejudice, and malice. Yet even

Part II Discoveries Chapter 5 The Challenge Jesse put on a light jacket, but I felt comfortable in my short sleeved shirt and T-shirt. After all, it was a bright sunny November day in southern California, and sometimes it stayed comfortably warm right into December. The reddish marks on my wrists were still slightly visible, although my watch covered my left wrist nicely. I don’t think anyone would notice the discoloration of my other wrist unless they stared right at it. Even t

Part II Discoveries Chapter 4 Jesse’s Place Suddenly, there was sunlight in my face. “Wake up, sleepy head!” my mom said in a sing songy voice as she turned the blinds on my bedroom windows. I was wondering if she forgot today was Saturday...until I looked at the alarm clock--it was almost eight thirty! My mom was going to drop me off at Jesse’s around ten so she could go into Escondido to do some shopping and meet up with some friends. I was about to spring out of bed when

Part II Discoveries Chapter 3 The Party Actually, the week went by quickly enough. We had a couple of tests on Wednesday and Thursday. Wednesday afternoon was basketball practice, and Thursday night we had a game in Escondido which we won, and suddenly it was Friday evening... The party was supposed to start at 7:30 and my mom was going to drop me off. The plan was that Morgan’s mom would pick up us boys at eleven sharp. The girls were staying for a sleep over. Of course

Part II Discoveries Chapter Two The Story It turned out to be a story, written out in long hand, about twenty pages in all. Now I knew why he wanted the computer so bad--what a painstaking process it must have been to write this all out by hand! Not to mention, he was left handed, which must have made it even more difficult. It was called Mall Encounter, and I of course flashed back to the little episode that had taken place over two weeks ago now, in which Jesse bravely res

Chapter I A Little Alone Time I slept long and peacefully that night, without a care in the world. It wasn’t until early Saturday morning, while I lay in bed half asleep, that I started to think about the day before. Jesse and I had made some serious physical contact. Whether it fell under the label of sex or not, really didn’t matter--it had been an experience beyond my wildest dreams! At that moment, the whole issue of my sexual identity could be swept under the rug--I didn’t care!

Part II Discoveries Prologue Well, here I am, having just completed Part II of my little stroll down memory lane. As you’ll recall, I started writing this stuff down as some form of self therapy, mainly because I felt I was being overwhelmed by a serious case of mid-life crisis. So the question one must ask at this point is: Has writing these memoirs improved or worsened my condition? The simple answer is of course, yes and no... Yes, forcing myself to go back to those days,

Perry (A fairly rich kid who always seems to be in some sort of trouble) and Jesse (A poor kid who is a blackbelt and has a bad past reguarding his previous schools and his father) find love for each other after Jesse moves to Perry's school from another city.

Having somewhat regained my composure, I nodded earnestly. “I’d really like to sit down and talk,” I said, apprehension creeping into my voice as all my confused and conflicted feelings started welling up, along with the very real fear that I might have upset or disappointed Jesse somehow. “I think we should do this downstairs,” I suggested somewhat desperately. “If we stay up here, I’m just not sure...” My voice trailed off, but I was sure Jesse took my meaning. “That’s cool,” he agree

Was I gay? The question kept coming to the front of my mind unbidden and unwelcome, as if my intellect was trying to send me some kind of last ditch warning. I understood exactly what Jesse meant when he said that he had never had these kinds of intense feelings for anyone before. I felt the same way. Of course I loved my mom, and there were my grandparents, and there was even a reluctant place for my dad in my deepest being, but nothing compared to the love, both physical and emotional, th

The week of Jesse’s impending visit turned out to be a busy one, making the time go by much quicker than it otherwise might have. We had our first two major tests of the year, English on Tuesday, and Math on Thursday. Thursday night we had a basketball game with a visiting team from Escondido-- from a much bigger school than ours--and we won. We won! On Tuesday morning, Tom met up with me in the parking lot and he looked a little...odd, like he was nervous or apprehensive about somethi

My mom insisted on having dinner with me at the mall that night. There was a little French style cafe that she liked and that had a pretty good ‘Bistro Steak.’ I agreed reluctantly, not really wanting my friends to see me eating dinner with my mom. My only condition was that we go early! So it was a little after six when we got to the mall. The show wasn’t until eight, but I had agreed with my buddies to meet at the ticket booth no later than seven fifteen, since it was the first night of

That night, as I lay in bed, Jesse was definitely on my mind. As I thought about him, seeing him from every angle, giving me that awkward little smile, flashing those big baby blues in my direction, I actually felt myself starting to get hard. I wasn’t totally surprised, since I had been getting a definite buzz from being around Jesse since the minute he walked into class. But now, I started to imagine what it would be like to have him come over, maybe even spend the night. The pool was

Mid-life crisis! I used to think it was just an excuse for a middle aged guy to run out and buy a shiny new convertible on credit, or an apology to justify a little bit of marital indiscretion, or a justification to get up and leave your dull boring job and drive up to the mountains for a week--Boy, was I ever wrong! Because I’ve got it...Real Bad! I feel like I don’t quite fit into my life anymore. Not that I have it half bad. I won’t bore you with all the details, but I have a wife of m

My name is Perry Thompson, and I was less than three months away from turning fourteen. I was in the eighth grade at St. Boniface, a small Catholic school in Santa Corina. I had started there only last year, but was already getting a little sad (and apprehensive) about leaving for Holy Trinity High School next year. I’m Catholic, but I guess I don’t think about religion too much--at least I didn’t until he came along... I’ll try to tell you what I looked like way back when, but mo

Perry (A fairly rich kid who always seems to be in some sort of trouble) and Jesse (A poor kid who is a blackbelt and has a bad past reguarding his previous schools and his father) find love for each other after Jesse moves to Perry's school from another city.

Thanks for the award, Nicholas. Not sure what I did to deserve it. I've been writing the same story for three years, so I'm not sure how I 'improved.' But I'll accept it and put it up on the mantle with all the other awards. Sure is getting crowded up there.

http://www.awesomedude.com/index.htm A showcase of quality gay fiction primarily dealing with teens, featuring established and brand new authors.

Very sad to hear you are closing the Shack. Stumbling on your stories really changed my life. I'm not gay in the traditional sense of the word, but whatever it is I truly am, I came to understand it better through your writing. As I've said many times before, you were my first and strongest inspiration and anyone who has enjoyed Perry and Jesse over the past year and a half has you to thank for it. I will be sad to see you go, but it seems you feel that moving on is important. I wish you luck in all your future endeavors, and thanks again for touching my heart.

I have been doing my own editing for over a year, and I consider it part of the writing and tweaking process. Despite my best effort, I have gotten occasional grammatical critiques and it bothered me that my lack of technical expertise was distracting from the pure enjoyment of reading for some folks. One of these critques was posted on my forum, and I facetiously challenged the poster to 'put his money where his mouth is.' He told me that he was serious about editing P&J, and we have just started the process. He is extremely professional and not only understands all the complex and convoluted grammatical rules of the english language, but also has a brilliant grasp of html, which baffles me completely. While I am not looking directly for creative input, I do find it useful to hear his thoughts on style and character consistency and things of that nature. When a story gets as long and involved as P&J, it is easy to forget a character's appearance, or age, or forget a small plot point from a chapter written ages ago. While we have only committed to working on three chapters together, I hope the relationship will continue. I think that ultimately it will allow me to focus more on getting the story out, and less about sweating the technical details.

I think the topics you have chosen are excellent, and are extremely relevent to the topic of writing gay fiction on the internet. Sometimes it is difficult to respond because of lack of perspective. I only have the experience of writing one story. When I started posting, I had no idea if anyone would respond to it favorably or otherwise. As it turns out, the response has been very gratifying, and I can't imagine what my life would be like now if I hadn't taken that first leap of faith. But I am writing it the only way I know how and it is sometimes difficult to codify the experience in a way that might be informative or productive. I also agree that it is good to hear the perspectives of both readers and writers.