BigBen

I wouldn't think of it, honest! For me, having read the first edition is not an impediment to enjoying this go round. I'm not sure what has prompted Wayne to do this rewrite, because I can't imagine how the story could be improved. But if you're encountering this story for the first time, I don't want to spoil your enjoyment of the unfolding. You're in for a treat. 👍🏼😊

Don't get me wrong, I love that part of them just fine, and would love to have some defenders in my life, too. As I mentioned, I don't really know why I'm being sensitive, but boundary-crossing seems to raise my hackles lately. Grant crosses a few boundaries himself, but perhaps because he's the viewpoint character, I seem to be giving him a pass, I don't know why. It could be because he realizes (sometimes too late, granted) when he oversteps and backs off. Brian and Natalie may do that as well, but we don't see it, because we only have what Grant and Troy see to go by. I should probably drop this discussion, since a lot of my thoughts are based on the first edition, and I don't want to interfere with your authorial process here. Suffice it to say that this is a great story and I'm looking forward to see what you're going to do this time around. 👍🏼

I like the revisions. Now even I can't get confused about the sequence of events. Thank you for making the edits. One of the advantages of publishing online, I guess. It's not something that could happen with a printed book. Cheers! 👍🏼

You can poke Hank all you want; I'm saving my love for Dawson! 😄

Please don't be sorry! A lot of it is that I approached the text with assumptions, and didn't read as closely as I should have. Hank makes more sense in light of what you said, though. If they were eating at home, I can see Chase going out to a bar to try and think things through--maybe. But going out dancing after that sure gives me an impression much closer to Hank's. Now I'm much more on his side than I was. You're getting to me, Gary, and I can't wait to see how you're going to jerk us around in the next chapter, lol! ETA--I still stand by my comment to the first chapter: it will be a happy ending if Hank and Chase both learn and grow from this, even if they don't wind up together.

Ah, see, I didn't pick up on that. In my mental picture, they had plenty of wine at dinner before the proposal, and the dance floor was part of the restaurant. I just assumed dinner out, since people generally make a production out of proposing, and dinner at home seems insufficiently romantic. Well, you know what happens when we assume . . . 😁 ETA—Now, were I in Chase's place, I'd have gone for a walk in the park to think things over. Leaving the house to run off to a disco seems like a very strange reaction. But that's just me.

I don't know. I didn't prepare at all before my first time, and it was fine. The key was lots of lube and moving slowly at first. Worked for me, anyway. In fact, I don't recall screwing many guys where fingering beforehand, or any other kind of preparation, played a part. They all seemed to prefer dicks or tongues to fingers. However, a fingering scene in preparation for anal sex is required by law in all gay porn . . . 😁

It's been suggested to me in a private message that Chase was not drunk at the time of Hank's proposal. Well, after a close look at chapters one and two, the picture I'm still getting is that after botching his response to Hank's proposal, Chase ran out onto the dance floor, where he was already too drunk to be making good decisions. There is no evidence in the text to show that he went to the bar first, although that's what Gary may have intended to imply. What do you all think? And Gary, care to comment? 😃 But regardless of that, why did Hank wait so long to follow after Chase and find out what was going on? According to the text, Chase had time enough to dance, have a definite flirtation, and then work up a need to use the john before Hank decided to track him down. If Chase had to spend time getting drunk before ending up on the dance floor, that just increases Hank's dawdling time and my perplexity. I'm also noticing (now) that Hank is already expressing his insistence on never forgiving Chase right there in chapter one. He further states explicitly that if Chase said no because he wasn't ready to get married yet, that means he'll never want to marry Hank. So it's beginning to look even more like a frame-up on Hank's part, whether conscious or unconscious. Another thing worth noting is that Hank feels that kissing someone else is an infidelity worse than having anal sex with the person, whereas in many, many stories on this and other sites characters express the belief that they haven't had sex together or made love until they've had anal sex (or vaginal sex, in the case of straight people)—that orgasms obtained any other way don't count. I have never understood the logic of that view, but it is prevalent and longstanding, to the point of being used as a defense in a famous presidential impeachment in the U.S. So why is Hank taking such a contrary position? (Of course, Jesus Christ taught that merely harboring desire for someone in our heart constitutes adultery, so perhaps Hank is actually on solid theological ground here. 😁)

Wow! This was intense. Hank is obviously consumed with jealousy, which, the popular romantic view notwithstanding, is a sign of immaturity and insecurity, not of love. In fact, it is very hard for love and jealousy to co-exist, as each tends to crowd out the other. Hank knows he is being unfair to Chase about Dawson, or he wouldn't have reacted the way he did to Chase's parting shot. The remark that it doesn't even matter whether Chase had sex with the guy in the bar or not reveals that he doesn't care about the truth; he is invested in having Chase be in the wrong. In fact, Hank's remarks are so over the top that I now suspect that he has either been unfaithful to Chase, or would like to be, and can't handle the guilt arising from that. Else why would he have chosen to propose marriage to Chase at the precise moment Chase was too drunk to give his valid consent? Was Hank himself drunk as well, I wonder? The notion that Hank needs Chase to be dependent on him has merit, and it makes sense that he would react badly now that Chase is growing strong enough to fend for himself. It was a real pleasure to see Chase responding to Hank's vituperation with maturity and calm. What a contrast to his immature panic when Hank proposed! (I suppose not being drunk helped quite a bit, there.)

They are basically nice people, but from reading the earlier edition of this story, I find them very intrusive. I'm not sure why, but I find their meddling harder to take than Grant's. Perhaps it's just the difference in personality, but I'd find Grant easier to take--I'd trust him to give me room to breathe. I'd feel smothered by these two.

I had a boss years ago, who was of the opinion that all technological development was inspired by pornography. It was he who, when the company hooked up to the Internet back in the early nineties, gave me access and introduced me to my first gay porn sites with the admonition, "If you think that the company president isn't looking at porn right now, you're sorely mistaken, but you have to promise me that you'll do at least some work, okay?"

I'm glad someone was able to provide the information. I forget to bookmark stories all the time, and when I want to re-read them, I'm screwed. I was just about to post a query about two stories I've been looking for, and it occurred to me to double-check whether I had read them here (duh!). A quick search turned one of them up, and interestingly, the other one is also on this site and was written by the same author! I'm trying to get into the habit now of bookmarking stories as soon as I begin them, regardless of whether I know yet or not that I'll want to re-read them. Re-reading a good story is one of life's great pleasures.

What a poignant vignette! Like @ColumbusGuy, I prefer to believe that the relationship did not end because of a breakup. I envisioned the death of the partner, and this was a visit to "our bar" in memoriam. For me, the pain of a breakup would have made a fond return to "our bar" impossible. I'd have either avoided the place entirely or taken it over as mine, doing my best to erase any association with my ex. (I can be a real S.O.B., sometimes.) One really sweet touch was the description of the hair showing at the top of the shirt---wicked sexy, that. I love men with hair on their chests, and I abhor the current fashion of grown men wanting to look like prepubescent boys. I can enjoy a naturally smooth man, but shaved? No way! If you've got it, I want to see it! 😄

Quite a few similarities there, as I was born a couple of years before you and my mother was also a rock. She was uncomfortable at first with my being gay, but she worked through her issues and became my strongest supporter. One of her brothers was a big help, too, over the years. But most of them are fundamentalist Baptists, with all that entails. My dad eventually reached out to me, and we have a sort of relationship for a long time now, but I was dismayed to overhear a recent phone conversation with one of his friends, in which he was spouting the same old religious crap as he did when I came out to him. And yet he says he loves me. Go figure!

Wow, that is a painful story. I'm really sorry he rejected you like that. A parent's love is supposed to be unconditional, and instead you got to discover the limits of your father's love. I'm trying to think of words of comfort, but I'm not sure there are any that can make up for having a father-shaped hole in your life. And unfortunately, there's only so much our chosen families can do to make up for how our biological families fucked us over. Peace, my friend. 💔

You're the best of the maul!

And to think we need to wait a whole week for the mauling, too! 😁 (Waiting with bated breath) . . .

Thanks for being so kind in your responses, too, Gary. I just read and commented on the next chapter, and you're right---things are getting interestinger and interestinger. I'm not sure Chase needs to worry about Hank, and it might not be a bad thing if he does push him away, we'll just have to see. This weekly updating thing is such a tease! (Just saying 😊 )

He seems to like doing that, doesn't he? 😄

I forgot to mention how glad I am to see Chase's father's response to the e-mail. I'm glad things are better than Chase had feared, and that the family may be battered, but it isn't broken. I hope Dad gets home soon and can help Chase deal with whatever is going on with Hank. My relationship with my father has never been what I wanted it to be, for several reasons, so I am a sucker for stories with decent fathers and father-figures in them. It's been nearly four decades since my father found out that I'm gay, and he's not much better about it today than he was then, though at least now he keeps his mouth shut about it.

I suspect that things aren't what that may seem, but only time--and Gary!--will tell. The guilt on Hank's and Kevin's faces could simply be from realizing what the situation looks like to Chase, or it could be that they really have done something to look guilty about. But although Chase is upset, he seems strong enough to deal with the situation, so I'm not going to worry unduly about him. It's Hank who seems to be sliding downward at the moment.

I liked this chapter very much. It was good to see Chance take a step towards getting closer to his dad again. I never put the dad on the "do not like" list, because the situation appears temporary to me. He's trying to recover from a deep wound, and if he can't maintain the connection with his children in the process, it's not necessarily the end of the family. After all, Chase did pretty much the same thing. That's why it's good to see him reaching out again. From the way the father has been portrayed, I'd expect him to respond eventually, if not right away. What I don't enjoy seeing is Hank's passive-aggressive crap. I thoroughly understand it, don't get me wrong--it's just that I grew up with that and got really good at that crap myself. Even when you get over it, the habit can linger for a lifetime, and I find I'm still not as good as I'd like at being direct. It's sad, as well, to see Hank sabotaging himself, instead of dealing directly with his pain. He does have a right to lean on Chase the way Chase has leaned on him, and now that Chase is stronger, perhaps he could do that. But I know from experience just how much relationships resist change, even when the change is for the better. I do wish, however, that Chase had gone over to Hank and called him on his crap. I don't think he did himself or Hank a favor by leaving Hank alone. Directness is always preferable to avoidance. (Yes, I realize I am saying "do as I say and not as I do." 😁) And why was Hank in the park in the first place? If he really wanted to avoid Chase, he'd have been somewhere else completely. Why is it so much easier to see this crap when others do it, and so hard to avoid doing it myself? ☹️ P.S.--My favorite line from "Steel Magnolias" is "You are evil and must be destroyed." 😁

It's ironic that those who have expressed a preference for macaroni and cheese in the comments all say they're lactose-intolerant, and here's me, producing plenty of lactase, but who have never liked the dish! A comment on depression: some depression is psychological in origin, and needs to be dealt with on that level. Some depression appears to be biochemical in nature, whether genetic in origin or influenced by factors such as diet, and that needs to be addressed with drugs and/or diet. I know that the less sugar and processed food I eat, the less depressed I get, but I find that I can't do without medication entirely, even though I can get by on a much lower dose if I eat right. This was a really heavy chapter, and I don't have much to say about it, except that it's good to see Chase making progress. I don't know if you've considered a scene in which Hank talks with someone about his problems, but it would be nice to read, hint-hint! (Perhaps Stacy could take him in hand, as Cindy did with Chase?) You're the writer, however, so I'll leave all that in your capable hands . . . . Here's to learning how this is all going to play out.

Depression is a monster. I've been fighting with it all my life, with varying degrees of success over the years. It's why I have sympathy for Chase as well as for Hank. "Unforgivable betrayal" is, quite frankly, a bit overdramatic, so I hope for Hank's sake that's not fundamentally where he's coming from. Since we're seeing the story from Chase's point of view, we know that the betrayal was comparatively minor, but of course Hank doesn't know that. I believe I mentioned in a comment on another of your stories that a marriage can survive almost anything but the loss of respect. So if Hank has lost his respect for Chase, because of seeing him kiss someone else, that's one thing. But to hold onto a grudge is an entirely different matter. From his loving behavior in chapter 1, however, I don't think that Hank, however angry he may be, has lost respect for Chase. Not yet, anyway. But now it's on Chase to rebuild--or to regain--Hank's respect, if necessary and if possible. Still, as I wrote before, if they both come out of this happier, healthier, and more mature than before, it will still be a happy ending, regardless. Now, if the two of them could just sit down and talk honestly, perhaps I could give my hanky a much-needed laundering! 😄 So when are we going to see chapter 4, huh? 😁

I'm really liking this story. It's not at all clear which direction you are taking us, but I am happy to go along for the ride. This chapter gave me hope that Chase and Hank are going to be okay, however things may end up between them. As long as they both learn something and grow into themselves more, it will be a happy ending, regardless of whether the relationship survives or not. Hank hasn't entirely frozen Chase out of his life, so he seems to be dealing healthily with his anger, neither suppressing it nor acting out. And Chase appears to be growing up a bit (especially according to his therapist's observations), which he really needs to do. He can't be the damaged, delicate one forever, that's just not healthy for him or for Hank. True partnership can exist only between equals. I'm really enjoying this story, and look forward to the next installment with bated breath! 😀