Dean Warner Intrigues - 16. Thanksgiving

Chapter 16 Thanksgiving

It was a short week. Classed ended at noon on Wednesday and did not resume until the following Monday. On Tuesday, Dean and his project partner turned in their report on how changing variables effect probability outcomes and felt good about it. They had analyzed the data thoroughly and the graphic representations they used were clever but clearly highlighted the points demonstrated by the project. Wednesday morning Dean had two classes before noon and they each mostly concentrated on what would be covered before the end of the semester which was just a few weeks away. After getting out of his last class, Dean returned to his dorm and went to his room to gather his stuff to take home. He had laundry, some books, his laptop and some personal items in a ditty bag all packed and ready to go. He made his good-byes with Justin and Jacob who were less organized and throwing some stuff together at the last minute. Ty was also all ready and they walked out with their stuff to the parking lot and loaded their vehicles and were off!

The drive home was uneventful, but there was some patchy drizzle. The weather had stayed above freezing, but it was getting crisper. Most of the leaves were down and it was a much grayer drive than it was in August. Dean got home and loaded his laundry into the washer and settled the rest of his stuff in his room. Debbie worked Wednesday and Thursday evenings and was not off for Thanksgiving on Thursday but instead got the Saturday off. As Friday was her normal day off it did make for a weekend. The neighbors Bob and Mike were working on Thanksgiving and also on black Friday and Debbie had invited them for a turkey dinner on Saturday along with Sean from across the street together with her boys.

Dean was spending Thanksgiving with John's family. He was nervous about that but John was very reassuring that everything would be fine. John was out to his family for several years and they were okay with it, if not overjoyed. Mainly they worried that John would be subjected to abuse and harm by some nut case. And as parent's they worried that John would miss out on having a family of his own. John picked up Dean at half past nine in the morning and they drove to the Methodist church where the Trasks worshipped and joined the rest of John's family in their regular pew. John had tipped Dean to wear a suit and tie. The service was about Thanksgiving and the pastor did mention giving thanks for the bounties showered on our nation and also the sacrifices of the men and women serving in the armed forces. First responders including police, firefighters and paramedics were also thanked. Finally, the pastor thanked his church community for the many acts of charity, kindness and thoughtfulness they had performed over the past year, including raising money, stocking and serving in the church run food pantry. The pastor asked them to pray for the President, the Governor, the county executive and the mayor and all elected office holders that they might put the welfare of the people before their own personal agenda or gain.

After church, they all drove to the Trask family home. John's mom and dad lived in one of the most fashionable areas of town in a large house with formal gardens to each side and a large patio with pool and pool house to the rear. A five car, car-barn was to the other side of the pool house and the front had a circle drive with a large portico. Dean was stunned. He knew the Trask's came from old money, but he had no idea as to just how large they lived. John had his own condo in a nice building in the small downtown area, which was nice but not opulent. They parked in the circle drive to the outside and his mom was let out by his father who then went and parked the car in the garage while John, his mom and Dean all entered the main entrance to the house.

The foyer was huge with a sweeping staircase to the right that led to the second floor. On entry, immediately to the right, before the stairways was a door that lead to the library. To the left was a double door entry to the formal living room or parlor with a huge fireplace. Behind that was the large dining room, also with a fireplace. Behind that was the kitchen. Off the kitchen was a gathering room with a table and six chairs in front of sliding glass doors to the patio. The room also contained two couches, a couple of club chairs, a desk with its own matching chair, side tables with lamps and a large entertainment center with a big screen television. In the corner was another fireplace. Just off this room was a powder room. Dean was given the tour by John who explained the bedrooms were upstairs along with another sitting room or den. In the area just behind the large staircase in the foyer, was an elevator and John took Dean up to show him his old room. It was maintained just as he left it. It had queen size bed, a desk, television, loveseat and a fireplace as well as an ensuite bathroom. John explained that his parent's master suite took up half the second floor. His room, two guest rooms and the upstairs sitting room took up the other half. Each bedroom had it's own bathroom.

John could tell Dean was a little overwhelmed and decided an explanation was in order. He told Dean that his grandfather Trask had done well in the law, as had his father, but that his paternal grandmother was wealthy in her own right as her father and grandfather had worked at Eli Lily and owned large blocks of voting stock in the company and had invested shrewdly besides. She inherited millions and millions and had bestowed large trust funds on both her son and grandson at birth. John did not tell Dean that his mother was also an heiress and was independently wealthy as well because he could see that Dean was more than slightly overwhelmed.

Thanksgiving dinner was served in the dining room. John's parents, his grandfather, the other two senior partners from the law firm and their spouses, John's aunt (on his mom's side) her two teenaged girls and John and Dean made up the table of twelve. The table was large and could be expanded to seat two dozen comfortably in the large dining room. The dinner was overseen by the family chef and there were two servers. Dean sat between John and John's cousin Amanda who was a junior in highschool. Dean did not have a lot to say, but answered when spoken to. He noticed that John's dad and the two senior partners included John in their conversations about work as if he were an equal. Finally, John's mother announced: “That will be enough shop talk, this is a dinner party and it is Thanksgiving.”

The dinner was traditional, with turkey and dressing with raisins and walnuts, mashed potatoes, gravy, candied yams, cranberry sauce, fresh corn on small cut cobs, asparagus, a Waldorf salad, and three kinds of dinner rolls with butter. An assortment of beverages including wine, iced tea and soft drinks were served with dinner. Dessert was a choice of pumpkin pie with whipped cream, apple pie a la mode, strawberry rhubarb pie and a chocolate mousse, each served with coffee, milk or hot chocolate. It took almost two and a half hours. Afterwards, the guests split up. The women went to the front parlor and the men went to the family room to watch some football. John and Dean stayed for about another hour then bade John's father and mother together with their guests goodby and left for John's condo.

Dean was exhausted. While John's parents had been friendly and polite, they were quite a bit more formal and apparently lived in a quite different world than the one in which Dean had grown up. After entering the condo, they headed to John's bedroom and shed their clothes and entered the shower. The pulsing warm spray relieved Dean's tension as John soaped and washed every part of his body. Dean then soaped and washed John and then they rinsed and dried each other with big soft bath sheets. Once in the bedroom, they pulled the covers back and scooted to the middle and started making out. In no time they were turning into a sixty-nine and each hungrily licked, stroked, sucked and stimulated the other. They each backed off a couple of times, but inevitably passions rose and first Dean and then John fired off volleys of cum into the other's warm wet oral cavity.

The next moring they were up fairly early and got in a swim at John's club. Afterward, as they had promised Debbie, they went to help her prepare for the dinner she was having on Saturday. When they arrived she handed them a list and her debit card and asked them to go to the grocery store. They got everything on the list and Dean noticed his mom had not listed beer, wine or soda and knew they had little on hand in the house. So the two of them picked up a couple of cases of beer, as well as Coke and Diet Coke. John also picked out a couple of bottles of white wine. Since it was a week short of Dean's twenty-first birthday which was on November thirtieth, John paid for the alcohol separately. They arrived home and carried the groceries into the kitchen where Debbie sorted through everything and put it away. She noted the beer, soda pop and wine and smiled her thanks as she had totally forgotten about liquid refreshments.

She started Dean on peeling potatoes to be put in a pot of cold water to be ready for the morning. John she put to work helping her get the good table cloth down off the top shelf in the linen closet and get it onto the table. She kept them all busy for the rest of the day and about half past five, proclaimed: “Well, everything that I can think of that can be done ahead of time has been done.”

“Finally” said Dean. “Let's go out to eat supper. Where do you want to go? My treat!”

Debbie looked at John and shrugged her shoulders, “someplace close and informal. I don't feel like getting dressed up!”

Dean looked at his mom and John and said “pizza?”

In less than fifteen minutes they were piling into John's car, (it was parked on the driveway behind Dean's) and headed to their local Pizza Parlor. Debbie liked anchovies and ordered a small pizza for herself. John and Dean shared an extra-large thin crust pizza topped with Italian sausage, pepperoni, black olives, green peppers, mushrooms and onions as well as extra cheese. They washed it down with iced tea. Dean paid the bill and left the tip and they drove Debbie home. They promised they would be back early on Saturday morning and then returned to John's place to spend the night.

John asked Dean, “have you discussed being gay with your mom yet? She is fully accepting as far as I can tell, but the subject is like the elephant in the room.”

“Yeah, I suppose you are right. She hasn't questioned me spending nights at your place and has offered to talk about it and stated that she loved me, but I find it so embarassing to talk about my sex life with my mom.”

“Well I don't think she will want details. She probably does want reassurance that you are being responsible and not taking any undue risks. She probably wonders if you are out at school and whether the guys at the dorm know and if so, how that is going. I think you owe it to her to clue her in so that she doesn't have to worry.”

Dean agreed to have a heart-to-heart talk with his mom in the morning and then pulled John into the bedroom, where he proceeded to remove all John's clothes and then quickly stripped himself. They pulled the covers back and proceeded to jump into bed where they made out like bandits; for a couple of hours. Satiated at last, they went and showered and then stripped the bed, put on fresh linens and put the dirty ones in the washing machine and went to bed. They could put the sheets in the dryer in the morning.

The next morning, true to their word, Dean and John made their way to the Warner house and found Debbie was just getting ready to put the turkey into the oven and they helped. Dean then took his mom aside and said let's talk. He and his mom and John sat around the little breakfast bar and Dean told his mom about his lack of success with dating girls and girls in general and that they never seemed to really excite him. He told her he never messed around with any guys before this past summer, but did look at porn and began to notice the guys more than the gals. From there he had gravitated to gay porn sites and it did not gross him out. He slowly, just over this past summer decided he was gay and after he met John and they became friends, he was absolutely convinced. He went on to explain about the guys in his dorm and that he was out only to those people he knew and trusted at school. He told her that he and John were exclusive but had not yet decided on a commitment ceremony. John looked on and smiled. Dean's mom was supportive and non-judgmental. Her concern was that they cared for each other and each other's safety.

They continued with preparations for dinner as their guests were expected at half past noon. Debbie checked the Turkey and declared it was done at noon and Dean lifted it out of the oven and moved it from the baking pan to the platter. John popped the rolls into the oven and Debbie spooned out the stuffing into a large bowl and then used the drippings to make gravy. Dean put the sweet potato casserole into the microwave to re-heat it. They were all still getting things ready when the doorbell rang and Sean came in carrying a large covered dish announcing he had dessert as promised. It went into the fridge as the cranberry sauce came out. The doorbell rang again as Mike and Bob had arrived with a hot green bean casserole. Debbie had Dean mashing the potatoes as John was uncorking the wine. Soon they were all gathered around the table. Debbie said a short prayer of thanksgiving and blessing of the repast and then they had a short toast to celebrate good neighbors. They started passing plates as Dean carved the turkey. He was providing huge servings of either white or dark meat as each guest requested as Debbie had made a twenty-five pound bird. The rest of the food was passed around and they commenced eating.

About an hour later, Dean got up to clear the dinner plates as Sean arose to get his master creation. It was a home made pumpkin pie with the filling whipped with cream cheese, eggs, and his special blend of spices. It was topped with whipped cream sprinkled with cinnamon. It was a thing of beauty. Coffee was served to everyone and the pie was demolished. All five men and their hostess were full. Dean and John loaded the dishwasher as Sean supervised cutting up the rest of the turkey and dividing it up into three care packages along with the rest of the leftover. Sean would take some, Mike and Bob wanted some and Debbie kept the rest.

During the dinner the conversation was mostly centered on how Dean was doing in school, listening to Sean's latest news about the neighborhood and Mike and Bob going on about their dog and how much they loved the area with the park right behind their house. They did mention that their police work had certainly calmed down since this past summer with their biggest excitement recently involving a high speed car chase when a fifteen year old, out for a joy ride in daddy's new car, tried to out run the patrolman. Since both Mike and Bob were from small towns, they had adjusted easily to the slow pace and in fact welcomed it. Both admitted that their time in service was highly stressful and except for the stint this summer with the murder and shootings, they didn't mind a quiet police routine.

Dean then asked if they had found girlfriends. Bob looked at Mike and said: “We thought you knew we were a couple. We don't go around announcing it on television or making a big deal about it. Both of us were subjected to don't ask don't tell in service which neither us us had a problem with that. But we don't try to hide who we are around you guys and we thought you picked up on it long ago.”

Dean looked at John and said, “well I just figured out I was gay this past summer and really have no practice.”

John said, “I figured you guys might be, but it wasn't a factor in how I felt about you or how I would treat you. To me being gay is just one fact about a person. It doesn't define them, or pigeon hole them. It's like saying someone wears glasses or has blue eyes as far as I am concerned. I think the only people who are truly worried about it are the religious fanatics and other people who are bigots.”

Sean bellowed: “Ya got that right!”

Everyone laughed at that and the conversation turned to other things including putting on the television and watching some football. Dean went and got everyone a beer and then they began watching the game in earnest as they let their food settle.