BigBen

I am looking for a story about a couple of young brothers who end up in Key West. The story is one of several by the same author involving a group of gay couples in the city. I have entered the following search settings, and several thousand stories turn up. The ones I've randomly checked out contain only the word "brother," and lack the phrase "Key West." Can someone tell me what I am doing wrong?

Aidan's jealousy is saddening, but Seamus's desire for Matt's happiness above all is very heartwarming. I once heard a wise man say, I think rightly, that "Love is the condition in which someone else's well-being and happiness are essential to your own."

Aw, you gals are just too fussy! 🤣😁 Besides, Aidan loves to help clean!

She was a canny one, all right! But fortunately, she got greedy and got caught.

I knew it! Loe is Jay's Loren, or vice versa. Sad that Loren isn't able to reach for what's right in front of him. Poor Jay is practically doing handstands, and he just doesn't see it. (Now, whom does that remind me of, lol?) I'm glad to finally make it to this chapter. I decided last night to re-read the story to console myself while waiting for a new chapter to post, and lo and behold! here one is! Was tempted to jump right to it, but I fought the temptation. It was sweet to see Matt getting better acquainted with Seamus's friends. The quality of a person's friends says a lot about that person. We already know that Seamus is a good egg, and his friends' being such good guys as well just confirms it. I'm glad they had such a nice weekend, but glad also to see them get back to their Aydo-Potayto. 😊

And that, boys and girls, is the very reason for code-naming operations in the first place! I like "Operation Butter Biscuit," but I wouldn't have complained about "Operation Stealth Potato Ninja," either. A couple of decades ago, the treasurer of the Episcopal Church embezzled four million dollars from church accounts. The only reason they caught her was that, on the day she was set to retire, she wrote herself a $60,000 check for accrued vacation, and someone happened to query it. Otherwise, she'd have gotten away scot-free. (Fortunately, the Church was able to recover almost all the loot, and insurance covered the remainder.) You can bet they instituted a bunch of really strict controls after that! P.S.—I had to come to my desktop in order to read this chapter. For some reason, when there are a lot of gifs in the comments my phone slows way down.

I agree with this analysis, though I would amend it simply say that Matt doesn't dare get too close to Seamus too quickly. I get the feeling that Matt knows they'll end up together, and he wants that, but this time he's determined to get it right. I know from experience how hard it is to say you love someone and not get it back, but I feel Matt is wise not to rush to say something he doesn't yet feel, even though he knows it's what Seamus wants to hear.

Actually, I'm enjoying the pace. Matt clearly has a history of bad choices, so it's good to see him proceed cautiously. I say this as someone who never learned to wait until the first date to have sex, so I feel I know whereof I speak. I know it's a convention of this type of story to try to draw out the mating dance, and the fanfics out of which this genre evolved are even worse. In comparison, Matt and Seamus have gotten together at light speed. Given that their pace would have been so much faster in real life, I admire our author for her deft balance between competing imperatives.

“I leave towels on the floor.” “I know, I pick them up.” “I know. If we lived together then you’d be picking them up all the time. It could drive you crazy.” “I do pick them up all the time and it does drive me crazy. Yet, we’re still friends. Imagine that.” I love Seamus's sense of humor!

I beg to differ. One thing I learned from my drinking days is that crying-drunk is not a good look on anyone, male or female. It may be fun to contemplate fictional guys acting like big softies, but the memories of the cringe-worthy reality are still far too vivid, even all these years later, and despite how drunk I was at the time. Though I have to admit that one of the benefits of being that drunk is that when you vomit, you don't have to be there. (Vomiting while sober is a much nastier experience, in my opinion.) I mention all this, because the scene of Matt at Seamus's house reminds me all too well of the time my boss took me to his place after an office party, because I was too drunk to find my way home, and I spent the night puking all over his floor. Whatever chance there might have been of an affair between us, that night put the kibosh on it. At least Matt stands a better chance.

The mention of Matt's taking Aidan to class with him reminded me that my parents were still in grad school when I was born, and they sometimes had to take me with them to class. Watching Matt cope with work, classes, and baby care has given me a new appreciation for what they must have gone through. At least my parents had each other; poor Matt's on his own.

I was thinking about this on my second read-through. This jealousy is common in toddlers, I think. And it seems to me that Matt is handling it just right by making fun of it. The teasing isn't mean-spirited, and it gently signals to Aidan that he doesn't get to dictate the adults' behavior. It's how my parents handled me when I went through that phase, and it worked. You know, the more I reread this story, the more impressed I am with how decent all the main characters are. I like that they are grownups, dealing with grown-up issues in a grown-up way.

She and her husband ran a theater project in Montclair, New Jersey, which did a combination of classics and workshops of new works. They did the best production of A Midsummer Night's Dream that I've ever seen, using actors from the local college. I don't know how long they were able to keep the operation going, but my lover and I really enjoyed all the performances we attended. She got to say my favorite line in Steel Magnolias: "You are evil and must be destroyed."

Ninny appears to be derived from the name Innocent (Lat. innocens 'harmless'), at least according to www.etymonline.com. I've never encountered it as the first name of anyone except a Pope, however.

I was thinking the same thing, but LoeJay just doesn't have the same ring to it, does it?

That is very good to know!

It's a great story, isn't it? I try not to start stories that are still in progress, because with depressing frequency they end up on permanent hold by the time I finish the last available chapter. In this case, however, I'm very glad to have made an exception.

My nana always used to say, "You eat a peck of dirt before you die." A U.S. customary peck is 8.81 liters, so a fair amount.

Didn't you ever hear that song Harry Nilsson did? "You put the lime in the coconut and drink it all up . . . " Loe is obviously the Loren who was set up by his friends to wear Jay's jersey (in chapter 9). And he called himself Loe, as well. And come on, this is GA, so of course Jay + Loe! 😄

Dickinson is like Frost, encompassing profound thoughts in simple diction. If you are not familiar with her work, you might enjoy reading some of her other poems, which should be widely available online.

I have to agree. There are enough stories about thirteen-year-olds finding the loves of their lives before they even get to high school. It's great to read about grownups. I can so identify myself with Jack and Larry. In fact, the only thing that saved me from taking the same path as they did was my complete inability to function sexually with a woman. And the mention of Greenwich Village brings back so many fond memories of bumming around that part of New York as a student discovering life and love. Of course, it all changed once AIDS hit, but . . . .

That is welcome news, indeed!

This is the point. My main relationship—the closest we could come to marriage back in those days—was with someone over a decade older than I. The power balance, not the age difference, was the significant issue, and communication was the solution. (That relationship ended, to our sorrow, but not because we weren't communicating.)

I just had to stop reading for a second to say what a wonderful line this is! Love it!

Violence, not love; I agree. But "taking someone apart" is a common cliché in fanfic, it's just that here it is meant more literally. I've never been into S&M, but I do know that a couple are supposed talk before hand about what they are going to do to each other, or there is potential for real damage to be done. It would be interesting to listen to Matt and Seamus negotiate that, lol! And I can't help wondering if Seamus would enjoy fisting, if he likes being filled up so much. Would such a scene be allowed on GA, however? I've never read any really kinky stories here. On the other hand, my idea of rough sex is to get the guy as far inside me as possible, and for him to fill me in such a way as to drive my prostate crazy. Pretty vanilla, huh? And I have many friends who don't enjoy anal sex at all, preferring for their lovemaking to be exclusively oral. But chaque chat, son rat, as they say, and I'm glad Matt and Seamus are starting to figure out what's possible between them.