You Pass This Way But Once - 1. Chapter 1 - My Discovery

I’m on top of the world. In a couple of weeks I’ll be returning to middle school, grades 6-8, only this time I won’t be a lowly sixth grader, but a more respectable seventh grader. Additionally, in a few months time, on November 27^th to be exact, I become a teenager and will be leaving my childhood behind. My parents have already informed me that, once I’m a teenager, I will be allowed a later bedtime, more relaxed curfews and greater opportunities to be on my own.

The unfortunate part is that they also told me that I’d have a greater responsibility in helping to care for my two younger brothers and little sister, as part of the same package. This is because I’m the oldest, so now I will be expected to do my part to ensure the smooth operation of the family as a whole. It looks as if along with the limited amount of sunshine that will be brought into my life, due to these new freedoms I’m going to enjoy, a little rain must also fall, which in this case amounts to the additional responsibilities. Oh well, I guess I’ll survive.

I can’t say that I’ve had it bad in any way, just the opposite. I’ve got great parents and they have good jobs, so we are a lot better off than many other families in the area. My father is a professor in the Education Department of the University of Wisconsin at Madison and my mother is a real estate agent. This allows her to make time for us kids in her schedule and we have enough money to do or have just about whatever we want, not merely what we need.

Besides my family and material needs being met, I’m not doing too badly in the physical department either. For twelve-years old, I’m fairly descent looking, at least that’s what my family, friends and a bunch of the girls from my school keep telling me. I am 5’ 1” [155 cm] with a fairly muscular build, which is a direct result of playing sports and swimming. I also have ebony hair, which is cut short on the sides, with bangs that come down to my eyebrows in the front. It also hangs down to my shirt collar in the back, but it’s as straight as an arrow.

In addition to those things, I’ve got dark brown eyes and perfect, white teeth – that are mostly due to efforts of my orthodontist. I’ve also got what appears to be a year around tan, which is the product of my ancestral DNA. Everyone says that my skin tone makes my smile seem so much more impressive, because the contrasting hues are eye catching. Although I still grumble about a few minor things, I really have all the ingredients for a very enjoyable life.

On the morning school was to start, I got up an hour before the alarm was set to go off, because I was so anxious to start my first day being one of the big dogs. I showered, dressed, ate breakfast and then waited for the rest of my family to get ready. My mother told me several times to sit down and relax, but I was just too excited. Eventually, she drove us to our destinations and dropped me off at my school last.

I gave her a quick kiss goodbye and then raced into the school, so I could look for my homeroom number on the list that was hanging on the bulletin board across from the guidance office. I found it and headed in the direction of the room where I’d get my class schedule. I was also looking forward to seeing some of my friends from last year again, but as it turned out, there were only two girls in my homeroom that I knew very well. This was not an encouraging start!

My first period class was mathematics, so I hurried off to the classroom, because I wanted to see who was in the class with me before the teacher began doing his or her thing. There were four or five other kids there that I knew vaguely from before, but none of my friends were in the class. Even though I’d been watching for their friendly faces, I hadn’t spotted any of them in the halls between classes or anywhere else for that matter, so where were they? This was definitely not what I was expecting or hoping for. There was one particular boy in my math class that looked interesting, possibly even someone I could become friends with, so I made a mental note of this fact, just in case my friends weren’t in any of my other classes either.

Second period was technology class, where we were going to learn more about computers. Once again, there were kids in there that I knew, but none of my good friends. Third period I had history, but none of my friends were in that class either. I did, however, see the same kid from my math class again, but he was the only one I really recognized. Fourth period was English and there was no one I knew in this class either. Ugggghhhhhh! What was going on here? Fifth period was lunch and, finally, I got to see some of my buddies.

I sat down to eat with them and discovered they had a lot of their classes together, so this just wasn’t fair. Why did I have to be the one who was left out and wound up in a different section? I didn’t waste the lunch hour worrying about it though. Instead, we laughed, joked around and compared the rest of our class schedules. Two of them were going to be in my last period class, the music/art alternating classes, but that was the only time I would get to see any of them, besides at lunch. Now, I was really bummed out, because when lunch period ended I had to leave them and go to study hall by myself.

I didn’t even bother to look and see who was there this time, since I was too depressed and already knew my friends wouldn’t be among them. The next period was science class and there was that same boy again. Maybe I should introduce myself and get to know him, because that way I’d have at least one friend in some of my classes. After science was the PE/Study Hall combination, but today was PE, so I headed for the gym as soon as the bell rang. That same boy was walking ahead of me, so I got up the courage to speak to him and introduce myself.

“Hi. I’ve seen you in some of my other classes today. I’m Logan… Logan Nagorny.”

“Hi, Logan. I’m Seth Eldred,” he responded, while giving me a smile.

“Nice to meet you, Seth. So where are you headed?”

“I’ve got PE now so I’ve got to hurry, because I have to change for class,” he replied, as he turned and started to walk down the hallway again.

“Really? Me too. That’s got to be at least four classes we have together,” I observed, as I walked beside him. “What do you have last period?”

He glanced quickly at his schedule while we continued walking. “Music,” he answered.

“I do too,” I confirmed. “Great, that’s five classes together. What period do you eat lunch?”

“Fifth,” he replied.

“All right, same here, so you’ll have to join my friends and me tomorrow,” I suggested. “We all eat fifth period, unless you already eat with someone else.”

“No, I don’t have anyone in particular that I eat with,” he admitted, while flashing a tentative grin. “I’d like to join you, if you don’t think your friends will mind.”

“Not at all,” I quickly assured him. “My friends never mind if others join our little group. The more the merrier.”

We didn’t have time to say more, because we’d reached the locker room and had to change quickly and get to the gym. When we got there, our PE teacher was ready to begin his first day introduction and lesson. You probably know the routine. ‘Hi, I’m coach so and so and to do well in this class then you’ll have to come prepared with the appropriate gym clothes, participate in whatever we’re doing that day, improve your skills as the year goes by and shower once we’re done. If you do those things, then you’ll have no trouble with me or in attaining a passing grade.’ Yadda, yadda, yadda.

The only difference with this introduction and the ones I’d heard in the past was the part about the shower, but I already knew that was coming after talking to my other friends at lunch. In sixth grade they ‘recommended’ showers, but didn’t enforce them, so nobody took one. Maybe that’s why it wasn’t optional this year. It’s no big deal, though, because we’re all guys and have that same extra piece of flesh dangling between our legs, but you know what they say about that. If you’ve seen one, then you’ve seen them all, which may not be technically true. It didn’t matter though, because we’d be taking showers after sports too, because I was planning on trying out for some of the modified teams during the school year. It was a fairly well known fact that the coaches demanded everyone shower after practices and games, so I might as well get used to it.

After his little spiel, the coach took us outside to run a mile around the track next, but it was basically just to see who was in shape and who would need extra work. There would be no time limit involved when completing this distance today, such as we would have later in the year, because the only thing he wanted to see was who could endure the mile distance and who could not. As we started out, Seth came up to run beside me, so we paced each other and ran shoulder to shoulder around the track. We were in the first ten to finish and didn’t even push ourselves to do it. Once we were done, he and I sat around and talked, as we waited for the others in our class to complete the run.

During our chat, I discovered Seth had gone to one of the other elementary schools in the area through fifth grade and we’d been in different sections last year, which explained why we had never run into each other before. I also discovered we only lived a couple of miles away from each other, so it seemed as if we should have met at some point, but for some reason that didn’t happen. We also didn’t seem to associate with the same groups or hang out in the same places, so we’d just never run across each other prior to this.

As we got to know one another better, we didn’t just talk about school either. We found out there were a lot of other things we had in common as well. We discovered we both liked to swim, play football, wrestle, golf and play baseball. We also liked many of the same video games, enjoyed the same types of music, including the same singers and groups, but we also spent a good portion our free time texting, tweeting and IMing our friends. With so much in common, we thought we might have been twins in a past life, because it seemed as if this was way too much to just be mere coincidence.

During our discussion, I came to the conclusion that we could become really good friends and maybe even start hanging out with each other outside of school too. If we did, it would make it much easier for us, since then we would have at least one friend in the classes we had together. These thoughts were suddenly interrupted, however, when the coach yelled for us to hustle into the locker room and change. We weren’t required to shower today, since he just told us about that requirement and we didn’t have towels with us, so we just wiped off the sweat with our gym shirts, changed and then headed to our next class.

Music was a riot. I introduced Seth to two of my other friends and we joked around throughout the entire period. The music teacher spoke to us a few times about settling down and even threatened to move us apart unless we complied. Reluctantly, we gave in and did as she asked, since we wanted to continue sitting together.

When the class ended, three of the four of us went to sign up for the modified football team. It was Seth, my friend Todd and I. When we arrived at the meeting location, there had to be more than forty other seventh and eighth graders there who wanted to play on the team too. This was going to make it tough to get picked for the squad, seeing Seth and I were both shorter and more slender than most of the other guys. He and I had talked about football earlier, at the end of PE class, and discovered we were both going to try out for running back and defensive back, so we had something else in common.

After the initial greeting by the coaches, we had to undergo our physical examinations and then we spent the rest of our time being issued our equipment and getting our playbooks. We were told which offensive plays to study for tomorrow, because we’d be held responsible for knowing the assignments for the positions we wanted to play. He said we’d have our first real practice then, so we’d better be prepared.

He dismissed us after that and we left to go home. My mom picked me up in front of the school and immediately asked how my first day had gone. I eagerly told her all about it, including what happened at football practice, with my classes and about meeting Seth. After hearing my description of Seth, she said he sounded like a nice boy and suggested I might want to invite him over sometime, so I agreed. After we arrived home, I went to my room to start my homework, while mom headed off to the kitchen so she could fix dinner.

My brothers and sister were outside playing when we first got there, because the girl next door had agreed to watch them until my mom got home, so at least they weren’t in the house bugging me just yet. I went upstairs and finished my homework quickly, since there wasn’t very much assigned for the first day, and then I went downstairs and watched some television, until my mom asked me to entertain the three little ones. I did that until my dad got home and then we ate dinner.

Dinnertime was family time at our house. The TV was turned off, no phone calls were either answered or made and no electronic devices were allowed at the table. As we ate, my dad asked us questions about our day and we’d discuss current events or talk about something interesting that had happened locally. It was one time during the day that my parents insisted we all be there and participate in what was going on, no matter how young we were.

As we were getting older, having this family dinnertime was becoming more and more difficult, because of practices, games, school events and scout meetings. No matter what else was going on though, we still found a common time to eat and have our family time together. Even though I sometimes complained about it, I usually enjoyed the things we talked about, as well as having an opportunity to explain or discuss something that was important to me. It was often a learning/sharing experience for all of us.

After dinner, I went up to my room and got on my laptop, which was my Christmas present last year. I surfed the web for a while, before I checked my email and went on Facebook, to see what was going on. Nothing much of interest was happening there, so I logged off and started to study my playbook. I had to memorize each of the running backs’ assignments for the plays we were told to learn, since I didn’t know which position the coach might use me. This took me quite a while and I was pretty tired when I finished, so I decided to turn in for the night.

As I lay there, I started thinking about football and wondering if I was going to make the team, when out of nowhere Seth entered my thoughts. When this happened, I decided I was definitely going to get to know him better. Why not? We had a great deal in common, got along really well and it didn’t hurt that he was also good-looking, so it just seemed to make sense.

Seth was 5’1” [155 cm], like me, but he had light brown, curly hair that swept across his forehead, covered his ears and hung below his shirt collar in the back. He had hazel eyes, a slender build and smaller waist than I did, which meant he probably weighed a little less than me too. Some of his muscles also looked more developed than mine, like his pecs, which I got to see when we changed in the locker room, but I’d be able to tell more about this after I saw him in the shower. He also had a cute face for a guy, or so I guessed, and he rarely showed his teeth when he smiled.

Wow! It was really unusual for me to be thinking about another boy this way. I’d never done it before with any of my other friends, so why now? Maybe it was because he was new and I’d known the others for much longer, but he also ended up being what I was thinking about when I fell asleep.

The next morning, I woke up early again, but not quite as early as previous day. I was showered, dressed, fed and ready well ahead of schedule, but I wasn’t pacing around like I’d been doing on the first day. I guess it was because there was no uncertainty about what I would be facing today, although images of Seth kept popping into my mind at the strangest times.

The school day went by quite quickly, but the lunch hour was the most fun, because Seth got to meet the rest of my friends and we all got along really well. There was no PE class today either, because odd days were study hall, so we studied our playbooks until the bell rang, because we didn’t want to mess up at practice. After that, I walked with my friends to the locker room, so we could change for practice.

Seth had the locker right next to mine, so as we hurriedly began to strip down, I glanced over to check him out. I was right. Seth had a very well developed chest and extremely muscular legs. His arms were pretty good too, but not as well developed as his chest and legs. As he dropped his briefs and prepared to put on his jock strap, I got a chance to see his cock. I’d say it was about three inches [7.6 cm] long when soft, but it was on the slender side and circumcised. He only had a couple of stray hairs at the base of his penis, but for some reason I wasn’t able to pry my eyes away from it. I don’t know why, but I couldn’t stop staring at his beautiful boy meat.

Fortunately, I had already slipped my jock on over my own dick, which was slightly longer than Seth’s, also circumcised and had more pubic hair, but it proved to be a good thing. Since I couldn’t seem to stop staring at Seth’s dick, I popped a boner and my jock helped to hide my current predicament. I’d never had anything like this happen before, like tenting up while looking at another guy, so I wasn’t sure why it had happened now.

I forced myself to quit looking in his direction and threw the rest of my gear on as quickly as I could. As soon as we were both ready, we went out to the practice field together, did the warm up exercises and then the coach put in the same group for drills, since we were both trying out for the same positions. During practice, we showed that we were both fast, although Seth was a little faster than me, and the coach liked the way we effortlessly cut up field just as soon as the holes opened up. By the end of practice, Seth was told to concentrate on the tailback position and I’d been advised to memorize the fullback duties. As I’d hoped, it now appeared as if we might have a chance to be in the backfield together, but it was still too early to tell if it would be on the first or second string.

After practice, we walked to the locker room talking about the possibility of being in the backfield at the same time and thought it would be neat to be playing together and blocking for each other. Once inside, we took off our gear and hit the showers, which meant Seth and I ended up going into the shower room together too. We stood under two adjoining showerheads and I slipped up and glanced over at Seth’s penis again. When I did, I immediately started to get hard again. Oh my god! This was sooo embarrassing.

I knew I couldn’t let any of the other guys see me like this or they might start rumors about me being gay and I knew I just wouldn’t be able to handle that. For this reason, I turned away from Seth and the others, but continued to talk to him over my shoulder, while at the same time trying to think of something to get my cock to deflate. I ended up thinking about my pre-algebra homework and, zap, it went right down. Thank god, but now I had to remember not to look over at Seth’s boyhood again.

We finished our showers, dried off and then went back to our lockers to get dressed. Before we left, however, Seth wanted to exchange phone numbers, in case we wanted to get in touch with each other some evening or on the weekend. I ripped a page from my assignment book, tore it in half and wrote my phone number on one of the pieces. I then gave the other half of the paper to Seth, so he could jot down his number for me. Once we’d done that, I went outside to catch my ride.

That night at home, I kept thinking about Seth. I could picture his body in my mind and every time I visualized his penis, my own would spring to life. What was happening to me? Was I gay or something? I’d never thought I was, so why did I keep getting erections when I thought about him and why did I want to see him naked so badly? Maybe after I’d seen him without any clothes on a few more times then this wouldn’t happen any longer, at least I hoped not.

Maybe this was happening because he’s a new friend and I was fascinated by his appearance, although this still didn’t explain why I was constantly feeling this way and boning up so easily. I’d never had such a strong desire to see any of my other friends naked and I’d never popped a rod when I happened to see their cocks, so why was Seth affecting me like this? I couldn’t find any easy answers to my questions, so I went to bed. During the night, visions of Seth kept filtering into my dreams. No matter what the dream was about, he was always playing a big part in it.

When I awoke the next morning, I wasn’t quite refreshed, but I got ready for school anyway. Today, we would have both PE and football practice, so I’d get to see him undressing, dressing and in the showers twice today, although I’d have to remember not to look in his direction when he was totally naked. It was ok to do it when he was clothed or only partially undressed, but most definitely not when he was nude. I would just have to pay attention to this warning at all times, especially whenever Seth was changing or showering.

The day went by fairly quickly again and Seth managed to sit next to me in every class we had together. Even in the class where we had assigned seats, he somehow convinced the teacher that he needed to sit by me, after telling him something about me helping him cope with a learning disability. I’m not exactly sure what was said or how he described his phantom condition, but it worked.

Lunch was really fun too, because the whole group ate quickly and then we went outside to throw a small Nerf football around. One of my friends had placed it in his backpack that morning, because he hoped we’d get a chance to use it at some point during the day. It was fun and it made the rest of the lunch hour pass by very quickly.

As I made my way to PE class later, I kept constantly reminding myself to keep my eyes staring straight ahead. I was nearly in my gym clothes when Seth asked me a question, so thinking he was probably dressed at this point, I turned in his direction to answer him. When I did, I noticed he was still completely naked, so as soon as I saw his penis, my old faithful sprung to attention in a matter of milliseconds. After that happened, I couldn’t even remember what his question was or whether I even answered him, but I do recall Seth getting a strange look on his face at that point. I hoped this was merely due to his annoyance with my lack of attention, poor answer or a failure to respond at all. No matter what else happened, I definitely prayed he had missed seeing my little friend’s acrobatics, as it did jumping jacks in my shorts.

We went outside for class and suffered through a lesson on soccer, but the last half of the period was devoted to a pick up game. Seth and I played on opposite teams and guarded each other. There was a lot of body contact when we did this, even though soccer was supposed to be a non-contact sport, but obviously not for us. After class, we went into the locker room again, undressed and headed for the showers. I held back for a brief time after Seth left to clean up, because I wanted to give him some time alone. I did this hoping he would be mostly finished before I entered the shower area and then I wouldn’t be in there with him for very long.

When I finally got there, Seth asked what took me so long, so I made up a really lame excuse and told him that a bunch of stuff had fallen out of my pants pockets when I took them out of the locker, so I had to stop and pick everything up before I joined him. He seemed to accept this excuse, so my cover was secure. I was looking at his face while I was answering him, so I don’t know why it happened, but my cock still rose steadily until it was pointing at the wall. How incredibly embarrassing! This time, I think Seth noticed it before I had a chance to turn away, but I prayed he wasn’t going to say anything about it. If he did, then I didn’t know how I’d ever be able to live it down.

Thankfully, the shower and the class were over, so we hustled to our last class together. Today was art and we spent the entire period doing this dumb still life picture of a pitcher, a bowl and some wax fruit. I was never very good at drawing, so this didn’t interest me at all, but we both lasted out the period before going to football practice. Try as I might, I just couldn’t resist looking over at Seth as he changed, but I was smart enough not to do it until I was partially dressed. Seth always seemed to remain naked longer than I did, although I’m not sure why, but it worked out to my advantage, since I could gawk at him after my cock had been packed away.

Practice went really well and Seth and I were constantly placed in the same backfield combination for drills and scrimmages. I think the coach liked the way we worked together and wanted to encourage this relationship. Later, while we were running a power sweep, with Seth carrying the football, I leveled the defensive end and sprung Seth free. The coach went crazy and told everyone that was how to play football and block. He also told them he didn’t want to see any more of the ‘pansy crap’ blocking that everyone else had been doing and suggested they watch and learn from me. Yep, it was definitely looking more and more like Seth and I might be in the starting backfield.

When practice ended, the coach asked Seth and I to stay behind, because he wanted to talk to us. We waited until everyone else had picked up the equipment and put it away, before we headed into the locker room with him.

“You boys seem to know each other’s moves pretty well,” the coach began. “How long have you been playing ball together?”

“Just since the first practice,” I answered. “We only met this week when school started.”

“You’re kidding me, because you two act as if you’ve played together all of your life. It usually takes months, maybe even years, before guys instinctively know which way the other one is going to move or cut, but you two are naturals together. It looks like you move as a single unit out there, but you seem to think as one as well and do a great job protecting each other’s butt. You both threw some pretty nasty blocks today, the kind the junior varsity and varsity coaches would die to have their team make. I would even venture to say, barring any unforeseen circumstances, that you boys will be starting along side each other this year.”

“Really?” Seth asked. “You think were good enough to start? I mean… well… neither one of us is very big.”

“Heck, there’s a lot more to this game than just size,” the coach responded. “You two have speed and quickness, which I prefer, because I’d rather run past and out quick teams, rather than just overpower them. I’ve either had or seen smaller, quicker teams slaughter opponents that were much bigger, but that’s because the other team was also a lot slower too. Even though you’re a tad small for your age, you have guts and can dish out hits, as well as take them. No sir, I don’t see anyone on this squad who could beat you two out for those spots, either on offense or defense.”

“Thanks, coach,” we both said, before I added a little more to the conversation. “Don’t worry, coach, we won’t let you down.”

Seth and I then went to the locker room, floating on cloud nine, since the coach had stroked our egos so magnificently. It looked as if we were both going to be two-way starters, so we sat down on the bench and began to take off our gear, as our minds relished this possibility.

By the time we got to the showers, everyone else was done and gone, which took care of some of my worries. Seth and I talked about what the coach had said and realized there was a whole lot more to our similarities than just playing football so well together. There was the way we thought, spoke and acted too. We could almost finish each other’s sentences and seemed to be able read each other’s thoughts, even though we had only known one another for less than a week. Maybe we had actually shared a past life together, if there was such a thing.

I guess I was just too excited to sprout wood today, because I remained soft, but I was becoming more and more aware that I was definitely attracted to Seth. It was difficult to explain, but I thought about Seth constantly, not just when we were together, and I also found myself both physically and sexually attracted to him.

Oh god, please don’t let this be happening! This just can’t be! I can’t be attracted to another male. No, this just isn’t possible! It’s not right. That would mean… well… that… I’m… you know… that I’m gay. Damn!