Finding Love - 3. Chapter 3 - Mixed Emotions

My birthday was on December 8^th, so the cook baked me a birthday cake and the staff gave me a few, small gifts. The butler also gave me a large gift that he said was from my mother, but I assumed he had purchased it out of the household account and then merely gave it to me from her. My mother never even came out of her room to see me or wish me a happy birthday, so due to her utter indifference, the gift from her meant nothing and I didn’t even both to open it. I just put it in my closet and left it there, but I was courteous enough to thank the staff for their gifts and left it at that.

That weekend I was scheduled to stay over at the Driscolls’ house again and after dinner, Mr. Driscoll took Tad and I for a ride. When we returned to their house, I walked through the door and a bunch of people yelled ‘surprise.’ Tad’s parents had obviously planned a surprise birthday party for me and Mrs. Driscoll had used the time while we were gone to set up for it. Tad had even invited a few of the other kids from our class, two girls and a boy whom we were friendly with, and they all sang ‘Happy Birthday’ to me. As I blew out the eleven candles, I was afraid I was going to cry, because I hadn’t had anyone, other than the staff, do anything this nice for me in ages.

As soon as the candles were extinguished, Mrs. Driscoll gave me a big kiss, wished me happy birthday again and then handed me a present from her husband and her. I hurriedly ripped the fancy wrapping paper off of it and discovered a collection of books. It included ‘The Hobbit’ and the complete set of the ‘Lord of the Rings Trilogy’ by J. R. R. Tolkien. Mr. Driscoll said it might be a little difficult for me to read the books other than ‘The Hobbit’ just yet, but added that he would be happy to read it to me and explain the things I didn’t understand. I thanked him for the gift and told him we could do that on the evenings I stayed over, and of course Tad would be included too. This sounded like great fun and I was quite excited about it. I had heard about these books before, and with the information I believed these books contained, I expected they would be exciting and add numerous new adventures for us to pursue.

I was just getting over my excitement about the books when Tad handed me his present. I opened it quickly and discovered it was a computerized fantasy game that we could play on either of our computers when the weather was bad. The other kids gave me their presents too, which I opened in their presence and then thanked each of them for their gifts, and then we settled in for the cake and ice cream. This was a great birthday surprise and my ‘new’ family had done more for me than I could have ever hoped. After the party, I kissed Mrs. Driscoll and thanked her and Mr. Driscoll for the wonderful time and their thoughtful gift. In return, they told me I was very welcome and hoped I’d had a good time.

Later, when I went to bed with Tad and were alone, I gave him a kiss and a hug, as I thanked him for his gift.

“How did you know it was my birthday? I never told you that, did I?” I wondered, since I was totally surprised.

“No, you didn’t tell me, but your butler did, a couple of weeks ago,” Tad informed me.

“Wow! I guess I owe him for that too,” I observed, mostly to myself.

Later, when we were lying on Tad’s bed, I thought of something else and decided to ask Tad another question.

“Tad, I need to ask you something, but I don’t want you to get mad at me,” I began. “You have to be honest and tell me what you really think though, because this is important to me.”

After saying this, I hesitated briefly, as I tried to get my thoughts in order, and Tad grew impatient.

“What is it, Win? What do you want to ask me?” he pressed, when I wasn’t immediately forthcoming.

“You know what it’s like at my house,” I began anew. “I hate it there, because no one really cares about me. The staff does to a certain extent, but I think they mostly do it because they feel it is part of their job. They’re not mean or anything, but I don’t really have much to do with them either, so I pretty lonely when I’m at home. I want to have a real family like you do, so I would love to be a part of this. Would it bother you if I asked your parents if I could start calling them ‘mom’ and ‘dad’?”

Tad didn’t answer my question right away, but after a few excruciating moments while I awaited his reply, a smile began to creep over his face.

“That would kind of make us brothers then, wouldn’t it?” he asked, somewhat rhetorically.

I nodded my head in response, although I still gave him a verbal answer.

“Yes, I guess it would in a way,” I agreed. “Would my doing that bother you? Would you mind if I did it?”

“Are you kidding? I’ve always wished I had a brother and I already love you like one, so why would it bother me?” he answered in a rather roundabout way. “I think it would be great, and I’m fairly certain my parents like you well enough that they wouldn’t mind either. Do you want me to go down and ask them for you now?”

“No, we can do it together tomorrow,” I replied. “I want to tell them why I want to do this, so they’ll understand it too. That’s also kind of why I don’t want to do it now, because that story will take a long time to tell and it’s already pretty late. We’ll go to sleep now and then I’ll ask them about it tomorrow, right after breakfast.”

“Ok. It sounds like a plan to me,” Tad concurred.

Since this had been agreed to, we cuddled with each other until we fell asleep. We were both lying on our sides, facing each other, with our arms draped over the other’s side, and we were still in that position when we awoke the next morning. I woke up first, probably, because I was so excited about what I was going to do, but I continued to lie there, so I could study Tad’s face and examine how his red hair gently caressed his face. Then, I began to study his alabaster skin and observed how the same paleness enveloped his entire body and not just the part that had been covered by his clothes. I was in the process of checking out the shape of his nose when I noticed his green eyes flutter open, as he stared expectantly at me.

“What the heck are you doing, Win?” he immediately wondered.

“I was just looking at you and memorizing everything about you,” I replied.

“Why would you do that?” he asked, while looking slightly confused.

“I was just taking notes about of how you look, because I never want to forget this moment,” I confirmed.

“But why?” he persisted.

“Because I want to remember everything about you and how you looked from the first day we met,” I added.

“I still don’t understand why you’d want to do that,” he confessed.

“You’re beginning to sound like me when I was about two years old. Why? Why? Why?” I teased. “My dad would always start to mock me when I asked that question too many times in a row, kind of like you just did with me. He said I did it because of my age at the time, so what’s your excuse?”

“I don’t need an excuse, so why were you staring at me?” he countered, undeterred.

“Because I don’t ever want to forget what you look like,” I stated again. “Sometimes I have trouble remembering exactly what my dad used to look like, so I have to dig out the old photo albums and study his picture for a while, so I can store the image back into my mind. It always bothers me when I can’t remember something about him, so I don’t ever want to forget what you look like now. I want to remember every detail about you, even when I’m 100.”

“But why?” he asked, although this time he giggled after saying it.

“Because I love you, silly. That’s why!” I adamantly confirmed.

“So why didn’t you just say that in the first place?” he asked, while releasing another small giggle.

Soon, we were both laughing, so I decided to tickle him, as a punishment for his insolence. I dug my fingers into his sides and worked my legs up and over his body until I was straddling him. He was squirming and writhing on the bed, while also bucking his hips upward, in an effort to throw me off. I kept running my hands all over his midsection and moving my fingers rapidly as I went. He was laughing hysterically at this point, but I wouldn’t let up. Finally, he cried ‘uncle.’

“Alright. Alright, you win,” he shouted, in between fits of laughter. “I give up. You may be victorious this time, but you fight dirty. Now, get off of me.”

“You promise you won’t start anything like that again, with all of those ‘whys’?” I demanded, while looking down at him with an air of superiority, while maintaining dominance over him, now that I had conquered my foe.

“I promise,” Tad reiterated, so I rolled off and let him get up.

“Come on, let’s go downstairs,” I told him.

He bolted for the door, but then stopped, and looked at me.

“Why?” he taunted, before bolting out of the room.

That was enough to get me going again, so I chased him down the stairs and into the kitchen. His parents were already sitting at the table as we came flying in, so they looked up, startled. After a moment, they turned and grinned at each other.

“Well, what are you two up to?” Mrs. Driscoll asked, while suppressing a giggle. “You seem to be in exceptionally good spirits this morning.”

“Yeah, we had a good night’s sleep,” I told her. “But then Tad started teasing me and I was just trying to get him back.”

“You started it,” Tad shot back. “You were making fun of me and then you started tickling me.”

“Whatever, ” Mr. Driscoll said dryly. “You must have been in a big hurry though, because neither of you even took the time to get dressed.”

We looked down at our bodies in mild horror. We hadn’t realized it before, but we were both still in our tighty whities. How embarrassing, and in front of his mother too. We both turned around and raced back upstairs, so we could put on our clothes before we returned to the kitchen.

“Sorry about that,” I said, as we entered the kitchen again. “I was so interested in getting Tad that I forgot to get dressed first.”

“And I just wanted to get away from Win,” Tad added.

“That’s okay, boys,” Mrs. Driscoll told us. “We didn’t mind. I’ve seen Tad and other little boys naked before, but at least you two had your briefs on.”

“Mom!” Tad yelled, as he squirmed in his chair.

“Well, you were the ones that came down with hardly anything on,” she stated indignantly.

“But we had our underwear on,” Tad retorted. “We weren’t naked, so can we drop it now?”

“Certainly, honey. What would you boys like for breakfast?” she asked next. “Would you like cereal, eggs or pancakes?”

We both wanted pancakes, so Mrs. Driscoll got out the Hungry Jack pancake mix and whipped up a batch. Tad and I ate three pancakes each and Mrs. Driscoll looked pleased. After we finished our meal, I asked the Driscolls if I could speak with them about something.

“Sure, honey. What’s up?” Mrs. Driscoll answered.

“I just wanted to tell you something first, but then I need to ask you a question,” I answered.

They nodded their consent, so I began my tale. I told them about my life before my father died and admitted a little about what it’s been like for me since then. I even told them about the last time I went in to see my mother and how she didn’t actually kiss me, but turned her cheek for me to kiss her. When I looked up, Mrs. Driscoll had tears streaming down her cheeks and Mr. Driscoll didn’t look much better. I wasn’t sure if I had already said too much by exposing our family secrets, but I needed them to understand why I wanted to do this.

“What is it the question you wanted to ask us then?” Mr. Driscoll prodded, when I didn’t immediately continue.

“Well… I just… I don’t think I can do this.” I said, as I bent forward and put my head down on the table, while wondering why I had put myself in this position. Did I go too far, too quickly?

“He wants to know if he can call you ‘mom’ and ‘dad’,” Tad told them bluntly, in an attempt to help me out.

I sat up and stared at him, but I wasn’t angry. I knew Tad wanted this to happen as much as I did, because in his mind, this small act would actually make us brothers. Why this would be any more significant than anything else we had already done up to this point, I wasn’t sure, but Tad did, so he sincerely wanted his parents to agree. I wanted it to happen too, so I would feel like I belonged somewhere.

“Well, of course, dear,” Mrs. Driscoll agreed. “We would like that very much and be honored to have you call us ‘mom’ and ‘dad’.”

“We certainly would,” Mr. Driscoll added. “Why, you’re already a big part of this family, so I don’t know why we didn’t think of it earlier. I would be proud to have another son, especially one as terrific as you. How about you, Tad? Would you like to have a brother?”

“I definitely would and Win knows it,” Tad replied, while beaming from ear to ear.

“Then it’s settled,” Mr. Driscoll said, with tremendous authority.

I thanked them all for agreeing, but I thanked Tad privately later for bailing me out when I couldn’t continue.

“You would have done it yourself, eventually,” Tad responded, as if it wasn’t a big deal. “I just wanted to hurry things along.”

I hugged and thanked him again, and then we began one of our fantasy adventures.

I spent a lot of time with them from that point on, but most importantly, I spent Christmas and New Year’s with them and it felt as if I were truly part of a real family again. I even had the butler take me shopping after my birthday, so I could buy them all gifts. Of course they bought presents for me too, but I didn’t really care about that, because it wasn’t important. What was important was that I was happy when I was with them and always had a great time. That alone was present enough.

One weekend in February, I had just returned home from staying over at Tad’s house when a strange man suddenly appeared at our door. Once the butler let him in, he went directly up to the master suite to see my mother. Since, I had no idea who he was, I asked the butler about him.

“He’s supposedly one of your mother’s old friends, Master Winthrop,” he answered. “I’m not quite certain, but I think he mentioned the two of them had dated before she married your father and your mother agreed to see him. He’s been coming to the house and talking to her on the telephone off and on for the past couple of months, so it would appear she might still have some feelings for him. She’s even been drinking less since he’s been in the picture, but he either shows up when you are at school or comes on the weekend. It has just worked out that his weekend visits happened to coincide with the times you’ve stayed over at your friend’s house.”

Normally, the butler would never have discussed my mother’s drinking problem with me, or any of her personal business, but I was under the impression he felt I should be aware of what was going on. I had confided in him on several different occasions and complained about how much her drinking bothered me. I even asked him why they either bought the booze for her or allowed it to be delivered to the house, so he answered honestly. He said she paid their salaries and gave the orders, so they had to do as she wished or they would have been fired. If that happened, then she would merely hire someone else who would buy the booze for her, so nothing would change. Therefore, they continued to do what she wanted, even though they didn’t agree with her drinking habits and knew what it was doing to me.

“How often has he been here then?” I pressed, hoping to find out more about this mystery man.

“I haven’t counted his visits, but he’s been here multiple times,” the butler confirmed. “I’m not sure if it’s done intentionally and planned to happen this way, but until now he’s shown up when you weren’t around.”

I thought about this information for a minute and then made up my mind. I was determined to confront this man and discover what he was up to, so I waited patiently in the hallway for him, while he was in my mother’s room. A short time later, he exited her bedroom, shut the door behind him and started down the hallway toward the staircase. Before he could get there, however, I stepped in front of him and held out my hand.

“Hello, I’m Win, Winthrop Aaron Randall IV,” I announced. “Who might you be?”

I thought if I was formal and exuded an air of confidence, I might impress or intimidate him, even though I was only a child.

“Hello, Win. I’m Bart Sovie and I was here visiting your mother,” he replied.

He wasn’t very tall for an adult and a little on the stocky side, but his clothes still appeared to be much too big for him and hung limply on his body. He also had a high-pitched, squeaky voice that didn’t sound as if it should be coming out of a man’s body, so I had to suppress my mirth in order to keep from giggling whenever he spoke. Between the combination of his looks and voice, it gave me the impression I was chatting with the Pillsbury Doughboy in a suit. He certainly wasn’t impressive physically and their voices sounded an awful lot alike, so that was how I thought of him. As comical as he appeared and sounded, I was still hoping he might say something that would make me feel better about his being here.

“I know you’ve been calling on my mother and coming around recently, but why haven’t I seen you before this?” I continued. “I have never heard my mother mention you either, and since she doesn’t leave the house very often, how did you meet her?”

“You’re quite impertinent, aren’t you?” he stated, as if offended. “Well if it’s any of your business, we met long before you were born. I used to date your mother back in high school, prior to her getting married.”

“I’m not impertinent and only wish to protect my mother,” I responded, once he’d finished speaking. “Why did you wait until now to get back in touch with her then?”

“I only found out about your father’s untimely death a few months ago, at our high school reunion,” he answered. “Since I’m divorced, I thought I should look her up, to see if she was the same person I remembered. You see I almost asked her to marry me before your father did, so I thought we might still share some feelings for each other. By the way, what do you think you are protecting her from?”

“From people who would hurt or try to take advantage of her,” I answered.

I hoped my insincerity about my concern for my mother didn’t show through my answer, because I actually couldn’t care less if she got hurt after everything she’d done to me. On the other hand, I wanted to see who might be trying to work his way into my life, so I could make certain he didn’t attempt to fleece my mother out of everything we possessed.

“I have no intentions of hurting your mother, young man. You can rest assured of that,” he stated, although not very convincingly. “I loved her once and believe I still may.”

“Does she still love you?” I asked, very matter-of-factly.

“I’m not sure about that, but I am doing my best to see if any spark still exists between us,” he answered. “That’s why I have visited her so often and am now attempting to get her to leave the house and go out on a date with me. I believe I nearly have her convinced to do it.”

“You know she drinks a lot, don’t you?” I added, hoping to dissuade his interest in her.

“I’ve heard the stories and seen some of it for myself, but she has been cutting back, at my request,” he added, while puffing out his chest. “I believe she may still be able to get her problem under control, with a little help of course.”

“And what about me? How would I fit into your plans with my mother?” I pressed, even though I didn’t exactly fit into her plans as it was.

“That would depend on you, young man,” he countered. “Would you like to have a new daddy, if it came to that?”

“I don’t know, because I’ve never considered that possibility,” I replied.

I wasn’t exactly telling him the truth though, because it was something I had thought about a great deal since my father had died. I just wasn’t convinced he would be the right guy.

“Well that’s an honest answer,” he acknowledged. “I guess I’ve never thought about having a son either, because I didn’t have any children with my wife, but I’ve also never been around many young people. I have some friends who have children, but for the most part they’ve never been a part of our social gatherings. I suppose I’m like you in that regard, because I haven’t thought that far into the future and hadn’t considered if it might be something we should consider changing.”

After he said this, I wasn’t sure what he meant by his statement. Did he feel he should change the fact that his friends’ children hadn’t been included in their activities, change the fact that he didn’t have children or change the fact that my mother had a son? Even though that idea was a bit unsettling, I went back to listening to what he had to say.

We spoke a few minutes more, and although he seemed polite, he was also sickly sweet, so I still had my doubts about him. There was just something about this guy that made my skin crawl when he was near me and even more so when he spoke. Maybe it was due to the fact that everything he did or said was just too smooth and too polished to be real. I hoped it wasn’t just my imagination, but I suspected his earlier comment had indicated there was something there that I’d have to watch out for. I wasn’t exactly certain what it was, but I was certain I’d know it when I saw it.

Unfortunately for me, Mr. Sovie became a regular visitor to our house from that point on and after a few weeks of trying, he finally coaxed the woman living upstairs into leaving the house with him, although none of us knew where they went or what they did. They might have gone on a date, as he had mentioned wanting to do before, but they went out during the middle of the day, which we thought was a bit odd, since this happened on a weekday. Didn’t this guy have a job?

My feelings about Bart Sovie never changed though and I kept both eyes open to see what he was up to. He seemed to be somewhat friendly towards me when we were in the house at the same time, but I was always uneasy whenever he was around. It’s possible he was doing this because he thought it would be necessary for him to get me to like him first, in order for my mother to consider him as a serious beau, but I wasn’t sure. To tell you the truth, as long as they both left me alone and didn’t ruin my life, I didn’t care what they did with each other.

Over the many weekends I’d spent at their house, Tad’s father had been reading us chapters from ‘The Hobbit’ and we had only one chapter to go. It was a great story and gave us so many new characters we could pretend to be and even more new foes to defeat. Mostly, we switched between playing Bilbo Baggins and Gandalf the wizard, as we traveled all around Middle-earth. We fought goblins, giant spiders and a dragon named Smaug, as well as a nasty little creature named Gollum, who constantly referred to his birthday present as ‘my precious.’ With all of these newfound villains to occupy our time, the weekends passed by quickly. During the bad weather days, we would play the fantasy game Tad gave me for my birthday, so there was never any downtime. Even though the video game might not have been as good as our own exploits, it was good enough to keep us busy and happy.

There were a few other things that kept us busy as well. We had continued our earlier sexual activity at both houses, although we had to be more carefully if we attempted to do anything while we were at Tad’s place. Once we had experienced how great humping against each other felt, after we’d done it at Tad’s house, the next time we stayed at my place, we tried it again, only this time we did it without anything on. When I climbed on top of Tad to give him a kiss, we started grinding our hips into each other, but before long we both had to reach down and adjust our wieners. My penis had slipped under his scrotum and got hung up there, while Tad’s was now bent so it was pointed at his toes, instead of at his navel.

After we repositioned our penises so they were now side-by-side and rubbing against each other, along with being tightly pressed between our abdomens, it felt much better. We then continued our juvenile humping in that fashion until we got those tingly feelings in our stomachs again, but we didn’t stop there. We kept going even longer, until excessive friction made our pride and joys start to hurt, which made us cease what we were doing. The slight bit of pain we experienced, however, wasn’t enough to diminish how much we enjoyed the feelings we got from this particular activity, so we did it quite a few more times after that. Once in a while though, we’d just rub each other’s boners with our hands, for a little change of pace.

Tad’s birthday was on April 7^th, so his parents threw him a party, except it wasn’t a surprise party. Mom D even invited the same two girls and the boy who had come to my party too and we all had a good time. I bought Tad a different fantasy game, so we would have a choice in what we wanted to do when the weather was bad, and he was very happy with it.

The next couple of months flew by, because Tad and I spent every weekend together. Unfortunately, Sovie continued to show up to visit the woman upstairs and they had even started to go out together more often. She had also begun to come down from her bedroom for meals and was talking to the staff. She even tried to talk to me one day after school, but I just brushed her off and went to my room. I did it because I wanted her to know exactly what it felt like when someone ignored her and acted as if she was worthless, the same as she had done to me. I wanted to give her an indication of how she had made me feel when she ignored me all of those times when I reached out or needed her.

She may be overcoming most of her other problems, but she was going to have a much more difficult time when it comes to dealing with me. I wasn’t going to make this easy for her and would do everything in my power to cause her to suffer and squirm as much as I had. Now that I had a family to be a part of, I was learning how much fun it was and how happy I could be with them. I was also beginning to realize how much of my life she had actually stolen from me, which happened from the time I was seven, when my father died, until I was ten and became close to the Driscolls.

She was the one who basically robbed me of the happiness I should have enjoyed as a child and instead replaced me with a bottle of booze. What for me should have been wonderful years filled with memories of being loved, she left me with feelings of inadequacy, loneliness and sadness. For that, I am going to make her suffer.