Mark Arbour

December 9, 2000 Escorial, CA Will I actually must have cried myself to sleep, because a knock at my door woke me up. I looked at the clock to see that it was only noon, so it wouldn’t be Noah. I wiped my eyes and said, “Come in!” Stef and Grand came in, and just seeing them transformed my mood. I felt a huge smile erupt across my face even as I jumped up to greet them, forgetting that I had that just-woke-up hard on. Stef giggled at me, but I hugged them anyway, ar

Dude, this thread has been dead for six months, and now this? Someone is not taking his Adderall.

The idea of succession is interesting. In effect, what you all have described has already happened. JP is recognized as the head of his branch of the family, but I doubt that his brother Jim Crampton (and their family) think so. I think it is entirely possible (and almost inevitable) that control of a family fractures into different power centers UNLESS there is some big unifying thing, drawing them together. For the Cramptons, in the past it has been Crampton Construction. A major family corporation or landholding could quite reasonably hold the group firmly together under one leader. They are much more diversified now, so I don't see that level of concentrated holdings that would cause family unity, and conglomeration, under one leader.

I find myself puzzled by comments like this. Are you saying that you don't like that Will has lots of sex and hooks up with different guys, or are you saying that you don't like reading about it? If it's the former, as I mentioned before, I've written Will as a sexual being. If I accommodated you, and suddenly turned him into this celibate being, he would be an entirely different character. It would be similar to having Stefan suddenly becoming prudish. Will is young, he's horny, he's got lots of opportunities for sex, and he takes them. I understand if you feel that's "wrong", but don't expect Will to change his habits just because you think so.

Another great chapter. I wonder if there's a university in the US where Kappa's don't rule the sorority roost?

A really excellent chapter. Jeremy's been nagging me to read your story, and as I'm sitting here after Christmas, I had two choices: watch a western with my father, or read. I'm glad I picked the latter. I love that you wrote what you know (Old Dominion) and you do it so vividly, it's easy to feel as if you're there. And I really like that Corbin got shot down at the end. Some guys like a challenge.

When we talk about the 80's, it's easy to overgeneralize. The economy was not booming for the entire decade. The economy was mired in recession, with record high interest rates and inflation, until it started to rebound in 1983. I'll share my own recollections, which are of course anecdotal and thus largely worthless. The decade started with a general malaise, and lack of confidence, in the US. This was accentuated by the Iranian hostage crisis and the failed rescue attempt. When I graduated from high school, finding a job wasn't a problem, but that was largely because I lived in Silicon Valley, which was booming. I recall a significant cultural change that ushered in the Reagan era. There was a general feeling that corporations were good, and so was money. It was like a huge bolt of materialism shocked the whole country. I remember the early 80's being dominated by New Wave and preppier clothing. That stark change was no where more visible than in men's hair styles. They evolved from the long hair that was feathered back in the late 70's to the clipped, short styles of the 80's. The huge increases in defense (and deficit) spending fueled our military and our confidence. Meanwhile, the Soviet Union was bogged down in Afghanistan, their own Vietnam. US economic and military power would ultimately eclipse the USSR, and lead to the dismantling of the USSR and the fall of the Berlin Wall. That ignores the tension of the early-mid 80's, the real fear that the world could be vaporized in a matter of minutes by a nuclear war. The doctrine of Mutually Assured Destruction was presumably guaranteeing our survival. In the US, we were fed extensive amounts of propaganda, exaggerating Soviet strength and demanding more money for weapons to combat non-existent threats. That propaganda fueled the very real fear of instant annihilation, or worse, a lingering death from radiation poisoning. It's hard to describe that feeling, which lives there dormant in the back of one's mind, sort of overshadowing one's life. As US power surged, so did the tension, and those fears. I often wonder if that didn't help fuel the AIDS epidemic. Did the threat of nuclear war make people more present oriented: give them more of a 'live for today' mentality? Why worry about some new disease when a nuclear bomb could destroy you at any given point in time?

Happy Birthday Jack!

Thanks Centex. I think I get what you (and Tim) were saying now. You're saying that Will should have to feel the pain of rejection from someone he likes and finds attractive, but doesn't reciprocate. Generally, I think Will is going to be largely immune from that because of how he plays guys. He's got game. He flirts well, and his flirtatiousness is really a way to gauge that interest level. I'm thinking of how he interacts with Sean, Wade's attorney. He's very suggestive with Sean, but in a harmless way. And Sean rolls his eyes and humors Will, his way of telling Will he's flattered by the attention but not really interested. If Sean were interested, he'd flirt back in a stronger way (like Jeff - Stef's Assistant - has in the past). And then Will would probably raise his eyebrows and decide if he wanted to go for it. I'm betting he would. Will did the same kind of thing with Ryan, keeping things easy until an opportunity arose (so to speak). If he was out at a bar, I could see it being different, where he sees a guy he finds to be really attractive, takes the initiative to hit on him, and the guy shoots him down. That happens to guys of all ages and sizes, so it certainly isn't restricted to Will being a minor. Again, though, I'd add that his wealth and power would probably add a lot to the equation, so when he walks up to that guy, that guy is going to take Will, who may not be his type, and slap tens of millions of dollars on him. Of course, no one would ever sleep with someone just because they had lots of money. Where I can see that playing out is similar to the scenario with Tony, only where Tony does toe the line, and does say no. But again, I think Will is too good at sending out and receiving "fuck me" signals to really get too screwed up. On the other hand, I can really see it become an issue is when Will is in a serious relationship, fully committed emotionally, and the other guy dumps him.

As I was driving out to Arizona I was listening to Linkin Park. As I've written Paternity, two of their songs have consistently resonated with me. When I have a block and I'm writing Will, the song I'll spool up is My favorite segment: When I want to channel Wade, I listen to My favorite segment:

SPOILER: It's not Noah that cheers Will up.

I hope you had a great Christmas. I think Will is going to have a better opportunity for more age-appropriate experiences when he gets to Menlo and he's mixed in with older kids. H-W wouldn't provide him with hunting grounds as fertile as those should be. ;-)

Thanks. I think Will has been in tune with his teen moodiness for a while, and while I haven't made an issue of his sessions with this psychologist, we can assume they are having a stabilizing effect on him.

I agree completely. As I said below, I think that Will's fear is that the beast lurks within him, currently dormant, just waiting to rise up and possess him.

What an awesome review. And how ironic that a kinky story diversion like fisting would end up drawing you in as a reader (and making it into the Google search world). I'm so glad you came along for the ride!

Tis the season!

I don't think Will is like his mother either, but I think that it would definitely be a fear he would carry with him. He characterized her bi-polar disorder as a thing lurking in her, just waiting to jump out and grab her (not the exact words, but you get the idea) when he met with her doctor. He's probably worried that the same thing lurks inside him.

You could always try Grindr.

As is so often the case, B1ue does a great job of channeling many of my thoughts, but I'll expand on what he said and pose the following questions: 1. Are you suggesting that Will should not be having sex with a lot of different people? He's very developed, probably equivalent to the average 17 year old (maybe 18) at this point. Those are the hormonal levels guiding his libido. He's rich, he's handsome, and he has no relationship commitments. Why wouldn't he have sex with a lot of different guys? And please, do not give me that moralizing bullshit, because it's not consistent with his character. Will does not, and never has had, a prudish nature. He's very much like his father (and grandfather) when it comes to sex. When he has a relationship, I think he'll be remarkably monogamous, but when he doesn't, he really doesn't see any need to restrain himself from having sexual encounters. Contrast Will with Wade in this regard. Will is more like Matt, in that he views sex as a fun thing to do, and he has no problem having sex with people he's not in a relationship with. Wade doesn't work that way: he needs the emotional connection, at least for sex to go beyond simple oral/manual stimulation. In addition, Will comes from a family that embraces sex and sexuality. Their emphasis has been on safe sex, not celibacy. 2. Are you suggesting that guys should be turning Will down? As was pointed out, many of the guys who he's slept with probably don't know how old he is. What are they supposed to do? Card him. "Before I fuck you, please show me your id." They probably should, but I don't think that's realistic. A guy goes to sleep with a smoking hot guy who looks like he's of age and stops to check his id. I can certainly see how some guys may do that, but I'm not sure that having a guy do that would really be meaningful to Will, or the story. So he meets a guy and the guy asks him how old he is, Will tells him, and the guy opts to not sleep with him. So Will moves on. It could possibly be meaningful if the guy was relationship material, but even then, I'm not sure that would really have an impact on Will. I don't think he'd conclude that because the 18 year old guy he was falling in love with wouldn't sleep with him, then he'd simply not develop feelings in the future for 18 year old guys. The storyline there would simply be about pain and heartache for Will. 3. Are you suggesting that he's unique in being the only guy his age who ever went out and slept with older guys? Matthew Mitcham was cruising gay bars (illegally) when he was 14. I'm aware of the legal issues, but I'm also aware that those issues don't often weigh too heavily on the minds of hormonal males. They should, but I'm not convinced that they do. Our debate here is not between right and wrong, it is between the ideal and reality. 4. Ponder that guys like Jeff or Paulo may be taking a gamble that goes beyond sex. If you were in their situation, what would you do? You have the opportunity to sleep with a smoking hot younger guy, who also happens to be filthy rich. Where's the downside? That his family may have you arrested and thrown in jail? That family? Right. You weigh that against the upside, which is that this guy you fucked around with may very well be willing to do nice things for you later on. What if a guy like Jeff decides he wants to go back to college, and take a leave of absence to get his degree. Stef would pay for it, most likely, but if he didn't, don't you think Will would be willing to jump in and throw some cash his way? I'm throwing out the hypothesis that rich guys, whether they're straight or gay, are going to have a much easier time getting laid. There's a very high sycophant factor out there, especially in the US. Those guys are running a risk, but the potential rewards are probably worth it to them, if they were to look at it in a totally mercenary way. Again, that may not be how we would like the world to operate, but I'm suggesting that it probably does work that way. Jeremy: 1. Are you trying to tell me that it's wrong for a guy like Wade to appreciate that Will is an attractive guy? He can't even think about Will as a sexual being, not in a fantasizing, erotic way, but just as a sexual being, and find him attractive? Really? 2. You're suggesting that Law and Order is a good research source? 3. Just because Will is young and sexually active, does that somehow mean that I am condoning and supporting sex with minors? I suppose if all 14 year old minors had grandfathers who were billionaires, and bodies of 17/18 year olds, then perhaps you could draw that conclusion. Let me know when that happens. Of course, you could point to all the other minors in this story who are having consensual, sexual relationships with adults. Guys like John, JJ, Alistair, Ryan, etc. Oh wait. They aren't. You mean Will is unique? The only one? Then clearly we should use him to generalize my viewpoints.

December 8, 2000 Escorial, CA Will I walked up to the Great Hall, looking for Wade’s grandmother, and found her actually waiting for me. She was wearing a pair of jeans, with a turtleneck shirt covered by a really cool Stanford sweater. “You look really nice tonight, Mrs. Garrett,” I said. “It will be an honor to escort you to the game.” I gave her my playful half-bow. “You mean you wouldn’t have taken me if I dressed horribly?” she teased. “I would have taken you, I j

It's Christmas Eve, and I sit here typing with all of my shopping done and only one more present to wrap. It's a calm moment for me, while there is a frenzy of activity around me, with other family members who are not so organized rushing around to get ready for the big event. I'm in the eye of a hurricane. And that seems to be an appropriate place to pause and wish you all the happiest of holidays, whichever you celebrate. Thanks to all of you who read my stories, and a special thank you to all of you who post in the forums and post reviews. Your feedback and encouragement are like fuel, making my writing machine run.

Still smoking, I see. Good to see you around. :-)

Good points. I remember in "Be Rad" when I wrote about Brad's confrontation with Dan Church. He was thinking about having Ace talk to him, and then decided that Ace would have such a superfluous conversation with Dan that he'd end up asking him to play Tennis. Can't see Darius doing that.

OK, I was going to just let this fly by, but I think this needs to be addressed. First off, St. Louis can be a narrow-minded town just like Claremont. Tony grew up in suburban St. Louis, and went to a Catholic Boy's School. I don't remember if I said which one. During his young years, he would have been raised in "The Hill," the Italian section of the city. St. Louis is unique in that the city itself divorced the county a long time ago, so the city of St. Louis is not actually in St. Louis County. That's created two entirely different cultures. You have an inner city, which has the usual problems big cities have, ringed by an affluent county, which is loathe to share it's money with the city unless it's for things like parks, zoos, or athletic teams. And of course, there are strong racial undercurrents to this whole structure. The city is extremely segregated. North St. Louis is almost exclusively black, while the South side used to be all white, but is now more integrated. The County follows these patterns, with North County being integrated, South County being mostly white, and West County also being mostly white, but also containing the region's wealthiest areas. East is Illinois, which is separated by the Mississippi River, but might as well be separated by an ocean. The power and politics are consolidated into the hands of the good old boy network. Social mobility is not a huge force. If you are born wealthy, you will probably remain wealthy, even if you are an idiot. If you are born poor, the odds are stacked against you. Tradition rules, and innovation is viewed with suspicion in the ruling circles. But St. Louis does not exist in a vacuum, even though it seems that way. The city itself is home to a thriving gay community, and has a gay bar or two. But that doesn't mean that being gay is considered "normal" or "good", at least not in the 90's, when Tony was growing up. Tony's family is Italian, and Catholic. It's hard to imagine two cultural backgrounds that are more homophobic, although perhaps I'm disparaging Italian-Americans too much with that. All you have to do is listen to the latest rants by the current Pope, or look at how the Catholic church so aggressively funded California's Proposition 8 campaign. Tony's father was ostensibly bisexual, and lived with a man, as his partner, for over ten years before marrying his mother. Because his father wasn't able to ultimately deal with his gay side, he cheated on Tony's mother, contracted AIDS, and left Tony without a father for most of his life. Tony's memories of his father would have been as a 5 year old boy. He probably last saw him laying in the hospital in the final throes of that dreaded disease. He isn't blaming AIDS on gay people, he KNOWS his father caught AIDS from a gay guy, from Jake. Sam's family was clearly very proud of him, probably because of his success in the academic world, and because he took care of his family. Here's a guy who made it big, then came back to St. Louis and bought his parents a new Oldsmobile. Don't think that Mr. and Mrs. Carbone didn't brag about that to all of their friends. I would suspect that Tony's family chose to ignore his gayness, and the way he died, and to focus instead on the positive things he did. He left his wife widowed at a young age, and left two young children behind, but he left enough money to make sure they were well-provided for. They probably view his legacy with mixed emotions, and choose to forget the negative parts of it. The things that Tony learned about his father (how he fucked Jake, etc.) were probably learned from eavesdropping on bitter adult conversations held behind closed doors with only family members involved. Unless he accidentally walked in on Jake and Sam while Sam was changing the oil in Oldsmobile, so to speak. I don't see that Tony has an outdated view of AIDS as the gay epidemic, and I don't see that he's homophobic. He blames AIDS for taking his father from him, and he blames his father for being a cheating slime ball, and giving into his gay desires that ultimately caused him to contract that disease. He feels those same desires in himself, and he hates that part of himself. He is fighting an enormous internal battle, one that many closeted men have fought. On the one hand, he has the entire crushing force of his family, his heritage, and his background, proclaiming that he should be a nice, straight Italian boy who marries a nice Italian girl and have nice Italian-American babies. On the other hand, he's got urges and hormones screaming at him, telling him to fuck another guy. Like many young guys, he can channel those drives into sex of any kind, into sex with a woman, but that won't satisfy him like sex with a man would. He's had a semester at school to change his attitudes, and we've seen him change in the way he relates to Will, but it's not enough to overcome all the conditioning he's had. What you are expecting from him is so far beyond where he's at. He has a long way to go to get there, if he ever does.

I have to totally agree with RJO. I'm really pissed off that I ran out of "likes", but I'll catch up tomorrow when my quota is reset. But you got a "like" from Sharon, and she passes those things out like Scrooge hands out gold coins, so that counts for a lot more anyway. If I made observations on every point, it would just be cheerleading, but I will make one comment on Will. You mentioned his all-or-nothing approach, and inability to compromise. Wade pointed this out to him during the emancipation drama, noting that he tended to see things in black and white, and there weren't shades of gray. I don't know that he will ever really change how he looks at things, but I think that as he matures, he will be able to compromise more. I thought this latest round, picking Darius as the leader, was an example of that evolution. I recall a charming Czech man who used to hang around in these forums, and he would exhibit a maddening ability to get into my mind and read where I was going. Seems you have found a way to, uh, channel his abilities. Does that mean we're having a psychic threesome?