The Castaway Hotel - 2 - 19. Chapter 19 - An Unusual Thanksgiving

Hardly a word was spoken during breakfast, amongst those of us who were already up. After Dustin and I finished eating, we cleaned up and were off to the hospital. We were eager to pick Kevin up and bring him home, so we hoped the situation hadn’t changed overnight. We arrived at his room just as Kevin was finishing his breakfast.

Kevin was actually looking well, considering what he had just been through. His color was good and he didn’t appear to be weak, and he smiled at us when we walked through the door. I took that to mean he was in good spirits as well. We asked him how he was doing and he responded, “I feel great and can’t wait to go home.”

“I assumed you’d be ready to go home, but how do you actually FEEL,” I persisted.

“Fine, like I said,” he repeated. “I haven’t really felt any pain, although I am a little sore down there,” he added, while pointing in the direction of his family jewels. “And I don’t feel any less of a man now, than I did when I had both of my balls.”

Dustin and I were first shocked by that comment, but then we both grinned. We were glad he had managed to keep a positive outlook about things. We continued to chat with Kevin and kept him company, until the doctor came by a short time later. It was about ten when he arrived, and Dustin and I planned to step outside the room, so he could check Kevin out in private. However, the minute we stood up, Kevin insisted we stay. The doctor looked up and winked at us, before telling us that would be fine.

When Kevin’s physician removed the bandages and examined Kevin’s scrotum, he also had me look at the area too, so he could show me what to expect and explain what I would need to do for Kevin once we got home. I guess I had expected it to look much worse than it did, but there was only a modest amount of discoloration from the surgery and then I saw the scar. I guess that was actually the worst part about it.

The doctor was explaining to me about the incision, when Kevin decided it would be a good time to make a wisecrack. “I think you’re taking a little longer than is professionally necessary to check me out,’ he insinuated, before releasing a modest giggle.

The doctor seemed unfazed by his comment and immediately quipped back, “When they’re this small, it’s hard to see and takes longer to show someone else what they’ll need to do.”

While Dustin and I chuckled at the physician’s retort, Kevin made a hurt face and surrendered, knowing he had been beaten at his own game. After the doctor left, Kevin said, “That guy must really be hung, if he thinks I’m small.” We all laughed at his comment and then Dustin playfully punched Kevin in the shoulder.

When we arrived home, all the boys came down to greet Kevin and welcome him back. Seeing Kevin walk from the van to the house was the first I had seen him walk any distance since the operation, because he was taken out of the hospital and to the car in a wheelchair. I had to admit he looked and moved like a cowboy who had just spent a month in the saddle. I was certain he must be very tender in that area, even though I had brought him loose fitting sweatpants to wear home, but it was really comical to watch him waddle up to the front door. Once inside, we guided him to the family room and let him stretch out on the sofa, while many of the boys took turns waiting on him, hand and foot, for the rest of the day.

After lunch, I had another meeting with last night’s offenders in the living room. I let Kevin and Dustin stay in the family room, as they weren’t involved in this particular problem. I looked at the others and asked if there was anything more they wanted to say to me, before I began. None of them spoke up, so now it was my turn to speak.

“I’ve decided on your punishment for what happened last night,” I announced. “None of you will be allowed to go anywhere, other than to school and certain school functions, approved by me in advance, for the period of one month. In addition to that, no one will be allowed to come here during that same period of time and, reluctantly, that will have to included Brandon and Jay as well. The punishment will end on December 17th. Any questions?”

Pat had one. “How are we going to do any Christmas shopping, if we’re grounded for all of that time?”

“You’ll either have to go with me, when I offer to take you, or you’ll have to wait and do all your shopping from December 17th to the 24th.”

Although they weren’t happy with the information, there were no other questions. so I went into the family room to explain to the other two what I had just told their brothers. Although they weren’t included in the punishment, I wanted them to know what I had done to the others for two reasons. First, they might think twice before they did something like that in the future, and second, so they wouldn’t make plans that might include some of the others, until the punishment was lifted. They thanked me for giving them that information, which put an end to that episode for now.

The next week was Thanksgiving, which created a whole new set of problems. My older children were planning to come home for Thanksgiving, which meant my grandchildren would be there as well and would want to spend time and sleep with their uncles. Due to the punishment, that wouldn’t be allowed and I was certain my grandsons wouldn’t understand why they couldn’t be with the others. With that in mind, I decided to call Michael and Marie, so I could discuss the situation with them. I made it a three-way call.

They both began laughing, when I told them what had happened. “And why do you think this is so comical?” I wanted to know.

“Because now we’re not the only ones who mess up like that,” Michael replied.

“Yeah, we were beginning to think our new brothers were angels and never did anything wrong,” Marie added, startling me. They had seen what pranksters and little devils they could be.

“You can say that with a straight face, after having been with them for a week?” I challenged.

“Oh, they liked to pull pranks and got in trouble with Robert, but I think that was mostly Robert’s doing,” she mused. “It’s just that we’d never heard or seen them do anything really bad, until this,” she clarified.

“Yeah, now it makes what I did, letting my friends surf-ride on the top of our car, not look as horrible,” Michael added, before breaking out in hysterics.

“Okay, but what are we going to do about Thanksgiving,” I pressed. “They are being punished and I don’t want to punish my grandsons too.”

“What if we don’t come home for Thanksgiving and then take extra time off at Christmas,” Marie offered.

“Yes, since Christmas falls on the weekend, we could take off the extra days during the week and go back home the following weekend,” Michael agreed. “I think your grandsons will be a little disappointed, but the extra time with their ‘super uncles’ will more than make up for it later.” I had never heard Michael use that term before, so I had to question him about it.

“Super uncles?” I repeated. He and Marie both laughed.

“Yes, Marie and I coined that phrase, after constantly hearing our sons tell how Uncle Cole, Unka Gwam or Uncle Ricky would do this or that for them. They have them up on a pedestal so high, even you would get a nosebleed from standing on it with them.” I had to chuckle at his remark.

“Okay, I understand and I guess it’s agreed,” I summarized. “I will miss seeing you at Thanksgiving, but in the same light, I look forward to seeing you for a longer time at Christmas.”

After they agreed to also inform Elizabeth and Robert for me, we finished our conversation and hung up. However, I intentionally withheld this information from everyone else. I planned to use it to reinforce their punishment and add another element to make them think twice about doing something like that again.

Seeing the number we’d be having for dinner had suddenly changed, I quickly calculated how many I would have to feed and started planning our Thanksgiving meal. I went grocery shopping on Sunday, to pick up everything I was going to need, but it seemed very strange going to the store without having at least three boys in tow. I had left them all home this time, as they were just beginning their punishment and I wasn’t about to make an exception to my own rule and take them out with me so soon. I did make them help me carry the groceries in and put them away when I got home though.

Monday, I took everyone to school, but then came back home to stay with Kevin. I felt bad about taking so much time off from school, but I had more than enough leave days accumulated, so I had taken off the three additional days, along with the two for the holiday. That’s why I was there when the contractor arrived.

He quickly went about his business and added the locks to the bedroom doors. When he was finished, he gave me four keys to each door and two master keys, which could be used to unlock any of the rooms. It took him about a half a day just to install them and then he started another job for me, one that I had kept secret from the boys. He was turning the downstairs office into the master bedroom again and was adding a new master bath to it by taking some of the area away from the rec room. The old master bathroom, upstairs, would now be accessible for all the boys to use. Not only that, but we could split the old master bedroom into two decent sized smaller rooms, giving us even more flexibility.

This wasn’t just a whimsical idea on my part, though, it was done out of necessity. With this many boys in the house, an additional bathroom wouldn’t only be welcomed, but it was a necessity! At the same time, the contractor also split off the plumbing for the two downstairs bathrooms and my new master bath and connected them to a new hot water heater, separate from the ones that would supply the kitchen and two upstairs bathrooms with hot water. Both of these hot water heaters were the largest, quickest recovering and most energy efficient models he could find.

In my new master bedroom, I was having the contractor panel the bottom half and paper the top half, similar to what we had done to some of the upstairs rooms. It would be a dark walnut paneling for the bottom half and a nice ‘nature’ pattern wallpaper for the top, showing rolling hills and green fields. This would also help at Christmas time when my other children came home, making more rooms available for them to use as well. The bedroom reconstruction would take most of Thanksgiving week, Monday thru Wednesday, and then much of the following week to complete.

On Wednesday, the three stooges approached me with a question. “When are our other brothers and sisters getting here,” Graham asked. Apparently, he had been made the spokesman for the trio.

“They aren’t,” I answered, very simply. However, my response caused all of their eyes to bulge from their sockets.

“They aren’t?” Ricky parroted. “But why?”

“Since you boys are being punished and I told you there would be no visitors coming to the house,” I began, “I called and told them we’d have to change our plans.”

“So you’re punishing them too?” Cole quipped.

“I guess that’s one way of looking at it,” I responded, “but they all agreed it would be best if they didn’t show up, as it would be difficult to explain to Nicky and Jordan why they weren’t allowed to play or sleep with you boys.” Suddenly, they all looked crestfallen. After standing there pouting for a few extra moments, they slinked out of the room, like three whipped puppies. I felt badly, yet knew I had made an indelible impression.

Later, some of the other boys came by to verify this was indeed the case, as they couldn’t believe I’d made my older children and their families stay away, just because they had gotten into trouble. I guess this was something they never expected from me and it gave them a new insight into just how upset I was about what they had done.

Thanksgiving morning I got up early to start the turkey and slowly worked on the other dishes. Most of the boys came in at different times to offer assistance, which I accepted gratefully. By 2:00 we had our dinner and the boys stuffed themselves with this special fare, but we didn’t have dessert until an hour or so after the meal. I not only had a selection of pies and whipped cream, but also several flavors of ice cream and cheesecake with a choice of toppings. Due to this extensive selection, the boys weren’t hungry again until later in the evening, but when they were, I told them just go back and nuke what they wanted or they could make turkey sandwiches for themselves. They all took care of their own needs and I got a brief chance to rest.

Friday it was just the boys and I, all alone in the house. Some of the boys watched sports on television, while others went outside to throw the football around. Trey was upstairs on the computer and Frankie was in his room, although I wasn’t sure what he was doing. Trey had been on the computer for a couple of hours when Frankie decided he wanted to use it. He asked Trey how much longer he’d be and Trey told him to use the one in the office. Frankie told him that it was a mess in there with the construction going on and he didn’t want to have to clean everything off first. Trey said he’d be off in a few minutes, so Frankie waited. Finally, Trey left and went to his, actually Dustin and Kevin’s room, to read. That bedroom was right next-door to the computer room.

Frankie got on the computer and started checking to see what he could find on there. He went into MS Office and looked in a bunch of the files, mostly school reports, song lyrics and things of that nature, but there wasn’t much there to interest him. Then he tried to look in the downloaded files, to see if anyone had downloaded anything of interest. Finally, he searched the recycle bin and that’s when he struck gold. Trey had deleted one of his files, but he forgotten to go in and empty it from the recycle area. He was planning to do it, but Frankie’s anxiousness to get on the computer made him forget. Because of this simple mistake, Frankie became privy to his deepest, darkest secret. It was a journal entry, which he usually kept in a password-protected file, but this was just a rough draft he meant to delete. Frankie read it with great interest, as it told him things about Trey that no one else in the house knew and information Trey had kept hidden for his own reasons. This is what Frankie read:

“November 23rd,

I’m not sure what to do. I’ve enjoyed spending time and doing things with Dustin and Kevin and I think they really accept me for who I am. All the others have accepted me too, but not like Dustin and Kevin. I want to tell them I’m gay, and I would also like to have them to make love to me. I would like to see what it would feel like to have one of them inside me. I’ve thought about it for so long, but I don’t dare say anything to them. I’m a chicken, because I don’t want them to get mad at me or hate me, but if I don’t tell them, then I’ll never be able to enjoy that type of sex with them either.

I was thinking about talking to Mr. Currie (I still can’t get myself to call him dad, because I still feel close to my own dad, even though he’s dead now) but I’m not sure how he’ll react either. I had almost worked up the courage to do it a few days ago, but then the thing happened with the party at the house and now I’m afraid again. I don’t know what to do. I think they’ll accept me for who I am, because they’re pretty good about accepting things that other people wouldn’t, like going naked around the house, but I want to be sure. I don’t want to ruin things, because I really like living here. I wish someone could tell me what to do.”

Although it didn’t have his name on it, there was enough information in it for Frankie to know who wrote it. Trey was the only one, beside himself, who didn’t call Mr. Currie ‘Dad’. Trey was also the one who hung around with Dustin and Kevin, and Frankie remembered that someone had told him that Trey came here when his parents died in an accident. Yes, he knew who had written it. Immediately, he turned off the computer and stepped out into the hall. He could see Trey lying on the bed, on his stomach, reading his book. He was only wearing a pair of shorts and a tee shirt and Frankie knew he wouldn’t mind dipping his stick in the little fairy’s butt. He quietly slipped into the room behind Trey and reached for his shorts. He had a hold of them before Trey even knew he was there.

“Hey, what are you doing?” Trey screamed.

“I’m going to make a little queer’s dream come true,” Frankie snarled. “Just relax and you’ll find out what a real man’s cock feels like inside you.”

Trey was scared and began to struggle. “Get away from me!” he screamed.

Frankie put his weight on Trey’s back so he couldn’t get away and kept pulling at his shorts, to get them down. Trey kept trying to struggle and, when that wasn’t getting him anywhere, he started screaming.

“Get away from me! Leave me alone! Get out of here!” he screeched, as loudly as he could.

Luckily, the boys who had been tossing the football around outside had just come in to wash up for lunch. Not only did THEY hear Trey’s screams, but so did the group that was watching the football game in the family room. Suddenly there was a whole herd of boys flying up the stairs and moving toward the shouting. Pat was the first one there, followed by Ricky, Cole, Graham, Danny and Dustin. As they reached the door to the room, the boys could see Trey, belly-down on the bed, his shorts pulled down to just below his knees, and Frankie was fumbling to get his own jeans open.