Poor Man's Son - 46. Chapter 45

 

September 14, 2000

Malibu, CA

Will

“So how’s school?” Tony asked me as we walked back to the house. I lit a joint and took a hit, then handed it to him.

“Different.” He gave me a questioning look, asking me to expand on that. “Everyone there is really smart, and super intense. So it’s not like it was before, where because I’m so hot, everyone was nice to me.”

“Yeah, that’s why,” he joked. It reminded me of how we bantered before, and how much I’d enjoyed that.

“Here, that doesn’t matter so much. What matters is how well you do.”

“That must be kind of whack. Your whole social order is turned upside down.” He was being all philosophical.

“You’re stoned again,” I accused, and then we both started giggling.

“Yeah, but I get what you’re saying.”

“So even though things are different, I like it. It’s a lot more fucking work, though.”

“I’m dreading that,” he said. “Stanford’s got to be hard as fuck.”

“So I hear. I’m looking at probably three to four hours of homework a night. If I had an hour last year that was a busy night.”

“You got friends there?”

“Yeah, a couple, and I made a couple of new ones. And a couple of guys don’t like me. JJ pissed them off. He’s such a bitch sometimes.” I told him the whole story on how that played out, and how he’d gotten Grafton and Crawford suspended.

“It’s got to be tough for him, that whole big change,” he said, trying to make it sound better.

“Only JJ wasn’t very popular before. I mean, he spends all his spare time skating, so he doesn’t have time to make friends. At school last year, he was a shrimp, and he would have gotten all kinds of shit if it weren’t for the fact that Darius and I are his brothers. Some of it he brings on himself.”

“So you stick up for him.”

“He’s my brother,” I said simply. That was enough. Even when I was pissed off at him, he was still my brother, and that meant that ultimately I’d be in his corner. Tony got that. He was all about family. As we got closer to home, I could see a lot of lights on. That kind of surprised me.

“Looks like everyone made it home,” Tony said as he noticed the same thing.

“Good luck trying to figure out who’s actually there. Everyone’s so fucking busy it’s more like a pit stop.” He chuckled at my stupid joke.

We walked into the house and I led him upstairs to my room. “So this is where you do all your beating off?”

“There are all kinds of places I beat off,” I told him. We opened the door and I flipped on the light, and then I just stared at my room in horror. It had all of my furniture in it, but otherwise was completely empty. All of my stuff was gone. My pictures, my computer, my sound system...everything.

“What’s wrong?” he asked, concerned.

“What the fuck?” I demanded. He just stared at me, clueless as to what I was upset about.

“You don’t have much stuff,” he teased.

“Yeah, I do, it’s just not here. Where the fuck is all my shit?” I was a little unhinged, and not a little pissed off. Who was messing with my things?

“Here’s an envelope.” There was a big envelope taped to the mirror of my dresser. He pulled it off and handed it to me, and I ripped it open like it contained some world-saving secret. There was a card with a note written in it. The handwriting was my father’s.

 

Dear Will,

Since things are going to get a little noisier over here with the babies, I figured you wouldn’t mind moving over to the other house. Robbie and I had the room in the front of the house re-done for you, and engaged an expert decorator to make it more comfortable. We moved all of your stuff over there for you, even your porno magazines. J

Happy Birthday. We love you.

Dad and Pop.

 

I was blushing furiously at the thought of them taking the few porno mags I had and looking at them, but that paled in comparison to the symbolism. I was moving over into the other house, the one where Dad, Robbie, and Cody lived. It was “the man’s house”. I felt Tony behind me, close to me, as he read the note over my shoulder. The feel of his body, and of his warmth, momentarily distracted me. “You’re moving?”

“Sounds like it,” I said, grinning.

“Who’s the expert decorator? Ralph Lauren?”

“Hardly,” I said, shaking my head and smiling even bigger. “It has to be Stef. He’d have his work cut out for him.”

“Why?”

“That room kind of sucks.” That was the only downer to this whole deal. He looked at me, demanding that I elaborate. “It’s in the front of the house, with these awesome views of the ocean, so that makes it kick ass. But it’s set in between the second and third floors, so it’s got this weird shape. It’s small but really tall, with these monster windows.”

“Monster windows can be cool.”

“Yeah, but that room gets fucking cold. Usually it’s a guest room, and only when the weather is really nice.”

“Maybe they fixed it,” he observed logically.

“There’s been a lot of construction over there,” I mused. “Dad said Stef was re-doing the guest rooms for them.” So that must have been the cover, the ploy to placate my curiosity. I thought about that, but only for a little bit, until I remembered that I could find out the answers to this mystery by walking next door. “Come on!” I said, and tore down the stairs and through the passage to the other house. It was dark in the main room, so I flipped on the light and started cracking up. There was a trail to guide me along, as if I didn’t know the way: A trail of candy.

“Jolly Ranchers. Dude, I love these,” Tony said as he scooped some up as we walked up the stairs.

“I’m more of a chocolate guy,” I said, making it a double-entendre. I picked up some Ghirardelli miniatures and put them in the front pocket of my hoodie. We got to the top of the stairs and I paused at the landing. “Cody’s room is right there.” I pointed across the hallway. He looked irritated at that. No, not irritated: jealous. Too funny.

We walked to a small set of five stairs that led up to a door with a big bow on it. I heard noises behind it and looked at Tony knowingly. “Brace yourself,” I warned. I opened the door and found Stef, Grand, Dad, and Robbie waiting for me inside my new bedroom.

“Happy Birthday, Will!” they all shouted in relative unison.

I felt myself blushing, and had no idea how to thank them for such a nice present, so I did the most logical thing by muttering “thanks” and looking down. That only lasted for a few seconds, then I got curious and started looking around at this room that was nothing like it had been just a few months ago.

“So that’s what all the construction was for,” I said.

“JP refuses to let me make the Great Hall at Escorial habitable, so I must use my talents elsewhere,” Stef said, giving Grand a sour look.

“I like that room, even if it is ugly,” he said simply.

“This room sure isn’t,” Tony said as he eyed my new pad. “This is the bomb.”

It looked nothing like it had before. Then it had been a moderately sized room that was very tall. Now it seemed a little smaller, but cooler. Only there was no bed. “You will notice that it is actually warm and pleasant in here,” Stef stated.

“Yeah. This used to be like a freezer,” I said.

“There are new, energy efficient windows,” he said, gesturing at them. “They still open, but when they are closed the wind will not blow through them.”

“It’s a good thing when wind doesn’t blow through windows,” Robbie said sarcastically, making Grand chuckle.

“Otherwise it would be like your house in Claremont,” Dad said to Grand, shutting him up.

Stef ignored them. “And this gray slate floor hides a secret. It is heated. You can feel the warmth rising up from it, no?” I kicked my flip-flops off and stood on the tiles that should be like blocks of ice, but were instead nice and warm.

“Awesome,” I said sincerely. The gray tiles merely accented the modern décor, with its leather furniture and stainless steel accents. There was a couch and a comfortable chair set around a thick fake-bearskin rug. It was aimed at a huge plasma television. Over in the corner were a spacious desk and a computer with a monster monitor.

“I have noted that you like to have separate areas for different activities,” Stef said. I thought about that and then stared at him, amazed at how perceptive he was. I was like that. Darius tended to do whatever he wanted to, regardless of what room he was in, but I was more organized. I did my work at my desk. I watched TV in a separate area. Stef had picked up on that, and designed this accordingly.

“Wait a minute,” I said. “Where’s my bed?”

Stef smiled big and pointed upward. They’d built a loft area about three-fourths of the way up the height of the room. Underneath it was a bathroom, a really cool bathroom with the same gray-heated tile. My closet was there too. Above it was an area where my bed was. There was a ladder, and another device near it that looked like something out of Star Wars. “That is an elevator. You may need to get into bed when you cannot walk.”

“Or I may pick up a guy who can’t climb ladders,” I teased. Tony seethed with jealousy, while I giggled. I stood on the elevator, which was no more than a disc with a railing around it, while Stef got in next to me and grabbed the railing. It seemed to automatically whisked us up to the bedroom level. “Is this automatically activated?”

“No,” he said, then explained it to me. “You must press the buttons under the rail.” He showed me where the buttons were, and how they worked.

“This is amazing,” I said, sounding as stunned as I was. When we got up to the loft, I was greeted with another cool surprise. There, dominating the bedroom space, was a king size bed. I like big beds, and my other bed had only been full size. “This is awesome! I love big beds!”

“Hopefully you will not try to fill it up with people,” Stef said dourly, but with a twinkle in his eye.

“Why not? I am your grandson.”

Tony and Robbie took the ladder up, while Dad and Grand rode up on the elevator.

“Nice bed,” Tony said.

“Wanna try it out?” I asked while raising my eyebrow, embarrassing the shit out of him. I jumped on the bed and it moved. It was a waterbed. “Check this out!”

“Dude, you got a waterbed!” Tony jumped on with me. “This is kick-ass!”

I looked around at all the shit they’d put into this space for me for quite a while, letting Stef act as my tour guide. Finally, they decided to leave me alone.

“Thank you so much!” I said to my dad and Robbie. I gave them both big hugs. “And you,” I said to Stef. “It’s so cool, all the thought and planning you put into this.”

“I am very thorough.”

“And you know me really well. That shows up so much in this,” I said. He got teary-eyed at that, which wasn’t unusual. I gave him a big hug and told him that I loved him, and that seemed to be the cue to finally usher them out of my room.

Tony and I sat down on my sofa. “Damn, this is some soft leather.”

“It’s more like suede,” I agreed, running my hands over it. “That bearskin rug is pretty sexy.”

He chuckled. “They’re trying to get you laid.” And then he did that thing that he did, where he’d be all joking around and shit, then get really serious. He moved toward me quickly and kissed me. It was one of those amazing kisses of his. He broke it off and grinned at me as I sat there, breathless. I got my act together fast enough.

“Think it will work?” I asked, raising an eyebrow. He looked all nervous, and that pissed me off. He seemed to get that, and seemed to get that he was in a corner, because if he didn’t sleep with me, it would be like all the shit he’d said to me before had no meaning. That just made me even more irritated, because it was like I had to trap him to be with him. Before I could let that fester so it turned from irritation to full-on pissed off, he kissed me again. Damn. He could just suck me in with his mouth. He pushed me down on the couch so he was on top of me.

I wrapped my arms and legs around him, and was just getting into it, when the door flew open. “I thought I heard someone in here!” Cody said cheerfully. Then he saw us. “Uh, oops. I’m sorry.”

Tony slid off of me and to the side so I could talk. “Don’t you guys have some sort of rule over here about knocking first?” I joked.

“Nah, we always hope the guy’s just naked and beating off.” That comment made Tony uncomfortable, but Cody picked up on that. “I’m really sorry guys. I’ll leave you alone.”

“You’re just excited. Think you’re the father of my sister?”

“That depends. How do you feel about incest?” he joked, then he got serious, almost like Tony did. “We find out on Saturday.”

“Maddy’s awesome!” I said.

“She is. I’ll leave you alone,” he said. I heard him click the door lock before he shut it. I turned back to see Tony a little freaked out.

“What?”

“Nothing,” he lied.

“Dude, I feel like you’re trying to run away from me. What’s the deal?” I demanded.

He sighed. “I’m sorry. It’s just that, well…”

He couldn’t go on; he couldn’t finish his sentence. “You’re not supposed to fuck around with guys, because you’re not supposed to be gay.” He nodded. “And you’re not supposed to be fucking around with me, because I’m fourteen.” He nodded again. “You never did anything you weren’t supposed to do before?”

“That’s not the point.”

“Just answer the question,” I said firmly. “You fucked those girls. You weren’t married. Were you supposed to do that?”

He gave me the ‘Tony look’. “Alright, I’ve done things I wasn’t supposed to do before.”

“So why can’t you just say ‘fuck it’ and have fun with me? Why can’t I be the exception to all your rules? Be straight with everyone else. Only fuck people who are 40 when you’re not around me. I don’t care, as long as you’re with me when we’re together.”

“That’s hard for me. I’m not the kind of guy who likes a bunch of people at the same time. I’m a pretty monogamous guy.”

“I’m not messing around with anyone else. Are you?”

“No.”

“You been with anyone since you were tested?” I asked. I had an ulterior motive.

“No.” He sounded mildly pissed off at being questioned about that.

“Me either. So I guess, for right now, we’re monogamous.” He looked confused. “Come on Tony, let’s take a shower. You reek.” He didn’t smell bad at all. I liked the way he smelled. But that seemed like a good way to move things forward. We shed our clothes and hopped into the shower. What I had planned to be some big erotic water adventure turned into an exploration of the features of the shower.

“What’s that smell?” he asked.

“Eucalyptus. That’s the aromatherapy part of this. See that button?” I pushed it and a different scent came out.

“That’s pretty cool.”

“Check this out,” I said, and pushed another button. This one controlled the lights. I changed them from blue, to green, to orange, and back to blue again.

“It’s getting steamy in here.”

“In more ways than one,” I joked as I stroked his semi-hard dick, making him jump. “Notice those seals around the door? This is a steam shower. Great for your sinuses.”

“Damn, this is one nice set-up.” We finished showering and got dried off, and then I led him up to the bed. He was nervous, so I tried to be playful to loosen him up. I pushed him on the bed and jumped on top of him, but it wasn’t working, so I grabbed his left nipple and twisted it hard. He yelped and smacked my hand away, then jumped on top of me, trying to pin me down to do the same thing to me. Only all the wrestling, all the body contact, had made us both hard as rocks.

He pinned both my arms back over my head and leaned in to kiss me. I felt my body relax as I gave myself over to him, completely surrendering to him. His lips were on mine, and his hips instinctively began to grind, pushing his groin into mine. I moved my legs out from underneath him so I could wrap them around him, as if to urge him on. It worked. He got into it, and let my arms go, giving me freedom to move around. I slid up a little bit, and that changed the trajectory of his dick. Instead of his dick smashing against mine, now it was running up and down my ass crack, grazing my hole. I was going crazy with lust; I wanted him inside me so bad.

I pulled away from him just long enough to grab the lube at the side of the bed, and then reached down to slick up his dick and my hole. “I want you,” I told him in my lustiest of voices.

He grunted and pushed forward, letting me guide his dick into my waiting hole. It hurt at first, but I was expecting it, so I hid my pain from him. “Oh yeah, this is what I want,” he said. “I want this so bad.”

“You feel so good,” I said, only now I was into it, the pain was fading, and I was sincere. I felt electrons fly through my body as he fucked me, sending the stimulation centers in my brain into overload. “God, Tony, fuck me.”

And he did. That boy had some endurance. He fucked me and kissed me, then paused to maneuver us into another position, then he fucked me some more. It was amazing how much he seemed to know, how he seemed to have this store of knowledge about fucking a guy. It was like he had memorized the gay Kama Sutra.

Only now his thrusts were more insistent, his breathing more intense, and I knew that he was seconds away from orgasm. I reached down and stroked my dick in time to his thrusts, bringing on my own climax. I felt my eyes roll back into my head as I screamed a scream of ecstasy that preceded the physical reaction which followed as shot after shot of cum flew out of my dick and all over my torso.

“Ungh!” he cried, or moaned, and then he came too. He blasted away; pumping his load inside me, giving himself over to the pleasure of sex.

When we were done, I grabbed my shirt and used it to wipe the cum off my chest and abdomen, then pulled him down onto me. “That was amazing,” he said, boosting my ego.

“I thought we had an earthquake,” I joked. We lay there like that for about five minutes, and then he kind of tensed up. He moved off of me and lay next to me, neither one of us saying anything about the chasm, the distance that was opening up between us. It took me a few minutes to get what was going on. He’d blown his load, come down from the post-orgasmic euphoria, and now he was freaked out that he was here, with a guy.

He yawned. “I’m tired.” He rolled over onto his side, facing away from me. Pretty strong symbolism, I mused. No cuddling with this guy. I lay there on my back, pondering what had happened. I was tempted to be pissed off at him, but in the end I just felt sorry for him, sorry that he couldn’t be who he wanted to be, sorry that he couldn’t enjoy the pleasures that he craved without feeling guilty. I tried to go to sleep, but I couldn’t. I was just too wound up.

I rolled over so I was up behind him. “Tony?” I asked. He moved back toward me almost violently, like he was going to elbow me, but mellowed out quickly when he saw my reaction. I tried not to let that bother me. “I’m kind of wound up. I’m going to go back to the hospital. You can crash here, and I’ll see you later on. K?”

“I’ll go with you,” he said, and made to get up.

“Dude, stay here. You’re tired. Enjoy my new room.”

He smiled weakly at me. “K.” I got up and went down the elevator to my bathroom and rinsed off, then put on some clean clothes. I paused to grab a couple of Addys from my backpack in case I needed help to stay awake, then went downstairs to get a ride to the hospital.

I found Stef, Grand, Dad and Robbie in the kitchen eating breakfast, so I joined them. “And what did you do with Tony?” Stef asked.

“He’s sleeping.”

“And did you make up?” he asked. I gave him a dirty look. I thought I’d hid things so well, but Stef, at least, had figured out there were problems. That must be why he dragged Tony down here.

“We’re fine,” I said dismissively. It was intensely irritating to be around this group of smart and perceptive people who could all but read my mind.

“I didn’t even know Tony was gay,” Robbie observed in between mouthfuls of food.

“I don’t think Tony knows that he’s gay,” I said.

“Perhaps he knows, he just doesn’t want to admit it,” Grand said.

“Perhaps,” I agreed petulantly, and then changed the subject. “Is JJ still at the hospital?”

Dad answered that question. “He is. Michael said they were planning to bring him home shortly.” I chuckled at that, that Michael would be communicating with Dad instead of JJ. How typical. “So why were you and Tony fighting?”

I glared at him. He just had to know everything. “Because after we had sex, he got all grossed out.” Hopefully that would suffice.

“Why do you think he got all grossed out?” he asked me, in the same way he did when he was trying to lead me along when I argued with my mother.

“You’re doing it again. You’re like a lawyer.”

“Doing what?” he demanded.

“You ask me leading questions as if to tell me how to frame my arguments. You do that when Mom is bitching at me, just like you did at the hospital the other day.”

“I do not,” he asserted.

“Yes you do. She’ll bitch at me for something, or accuse me of something, and then you’ll ask me questions to coach me into making my point.” Grand was sitting there smugly, trying not to chuckle, but I was in such a bitchy mood now, I didn’t even spare him. “It’s just like Grand does to you.”

Grand’s expression changed to one of minor annoyance, while Dad looked at him, as if to blame him for his own weaknesses. Stef smiled at the drama, while Robbie was too busy eating to get involved. “I do not do that,” Dad said.

“You are implying that I do?” Grand asked imperiously. I focused on eating, happy to let them grapple with the conflict.

“You have in the past,” Dad said.

“So Tony had sex with you, but afterward he was upset about it?” Stef asked me, ruining the great argument I’d engineered between Dad and Grand and dragging us back to my issues. “Those are the classic signs of a closet case.”

“Yeah, well it’s not too flattering after you feel the fucking earth move to have the guy tell you that you’re disgusting and gross,” I said, words I regretted immediately after I said them.

“He said that?” Dad asked. I sighed, knowing that now I’d have to go into the whole thing.

“He said that sex with me was disgusting and gross.”

“To him, it probably was, after he was done,” Stef observed. “Once his hormones had been satisfied.”

“So what am I supposed to do? Be all happy that he said that, and just blow it off?”

“I have observed that you approach relationships from your own perspective, and do not consider the other person’s motivation,” Stef said delicately.

“Right. The selfish bastard thing,” I said, now thoroughly pissed off. “I already got that talk once today.” I glared at my dad.

Stef wasn’t going to be put off. “I am not trying to attack you. I am just saying that not everyone wants the same thing that you do. You are looking for your Mr. Right, the man to come in and sweep you off your feet. I do not think you are going to find another young man your age with that objective.”

“Not that he’s been sleeping with men his own age,” Grand observed drily, piling on.

“So because I want to meet a guy, be with just him, and be totally into him, I’m wrong?” I asked acidly.

“Sometimes sex is just sex,” Stef said. “While sometimes it is more meaningful.”

“Well this sex was meaningful,” I said. “It was awesome. That’s why when he wigged out on me, it really upset me.”

“What do you think was going through his mind at the time?”

“Do I always have to take that into consideration? Can’t I just have my own feelings once in a while?” I knew I sounded petulant and bitchy, but I was pissed off and cornered. I had three guys badgering me from all sides.

Not surprisingly, help came from one of the most reliable sources: Robbie. None of us had even seemed to remember he was in the room until he slammed his knife and fork down onto the table. “What the fuck is wrong with you people?”

“Excuse me?” Stef asked, clearly offended.

“Leave the kid alone. Here it is, it’s his birthday, and all three of you are jumping on him about how he handles his relationships, which are really none of your damn business anyway. This kid is the one who stepped in for the rest of us to help Tiffany have her baby, which earns him damn-near hero status in my book, and you’re busting his balls over how he reacts to guys who treat him like shit.” They just stared at him, dumbfounded. “Happy fucking birthday, Will,” he said to me, and glared at the others.

“Thanks,” I said meekly. He stood up, still really pissed off. “You think you can give me a ride to the hospital?”

“Gladly,” he said. He stormed out of the kitchen, while I followed him at a less bombastic pace. We hopped into his Ferrari and he gunned it a few times, as if venting his own anger, then headed out onto PCH.

“Thanks for sticking up for me,” I told him.

“Those guys sometimes bring a gun to a knife fight,” he said. That kind of freaked me out, because it implied that he didn’t disagree with what they said.

“Maybe they’re right,” I observed, more to draw him out than because I believed him.

“They may be, but that doesn’t make it right.” We drove on while I pondered that.

“Do you think I’m expecting too much from guys?”

He smiled at me. “You’re fourteen. You approach things like a fourteen-year-old guy. Everyone you meet and start going out with is suddenly someone you have to fall in love with. You haven’t learned to separate love and infatuation.”

“So I should just fuck around and not worry about it?” I asked, confused.

“No, I think you may want to think about it this way. If you meet a guy you like, first of all, think about him as a friend. Then if you hook up with him, think about him as a friend with benefits. Either one of those is a pretty stable and easy relationship to handle. Only when the guy is really special, and you really love him, do you advance it to the next level.”

“You didn’t always work that way,” I said, eying him carefully.

“No, I didn’t. I finally figured it out after all this time. If I would have gotten that earlier, it would have saved us all a lot of pain and suffering.”

“I don’t know about that,” I joked. “I get what you’re saying, though. I guess I did that with John, and with Berto, and now with Tony.”

“Yep. And what those guys are trying to say to you is that with Tony, he’s a wounded puppy, so you need to be careful with him. He’s going to have it tough. He’s got issues about his father, and I’m betting that he’s grappled with them by denying his own gayness. Only now when he finds out he is gay, he has to walk through that whole minefield again.”

“So what do I do to help him?”

“See, you’re not a totally selfish bastard,” he teased. “You keep things easy between you. Don’t force things, and don’t make commitments to him or expect them from him. Be a friend, and give him the room to come to terms with who he is.”

“Dude, I so wish one of your nephews was a clone of you,” I said affectionately.

“Yeah, but they’re not. You should be careful around them.”

“Why?”

“Gathan has his own issues, but he’s the jewel of the bunch. Brent and Trent are nice enough, but don’t have a lot on the ball upstairs. Zeke’s only good when it comes to math. And Zach is a schemer, a guy who’s pretty toxic.”

“You’re still going to help Zach out?” I asked.

“Yeah. People can change. I have to have hope.”