The Year I Stopped Being Invisible - 26. Chapter 26

It was Tuesday evening, and I lay in Taine's bed upstairs at the Maxwell house, thinking deep thoughts. I was on my left side, most of my weight supported by my elbow as I gently rested my head on Taine's sleeping chest. His right arm was draped loosely around my shoulders and back, and my left hand idly stroked his warm, flat belly. His knees were up, resting his legs across the top of mine as I snuggled him, curled up tightly against his soft, smooth little butt. I was sleepy and content, feeling his heart beat beneath my ear, listening to the soft sounds of his breathing as his chest steadily rose and fell, my mind drifting back over the events of the day.

Nothing really terrible had happened on that Tuesday, which was a relief after what we had both been through, but there were a few events worth noting. First of these was Linda's nervousness about the car which had been following her. She was the one who first noticed the beaten-up black Charger as she had dropped Taine and me off at our respective homes the previous evening.

Linda was worried, wondering whether the car belonged to one of Kevin Gorman's vengeful friends, who had already brutally murdered my dog, Foxy, and destroyed much of Sly Maxwell's beloved new red Lamborghini.

I could see the despondent look on Taine's face as Linda told us of her concerns about the Charger, and I knew instantly what he was thinking: that the black cloud of doom which followed him around, which he was sure spread grave misfortune to everyone close to him, was about to claim another innocent victim. I tried to get his mind off it by pinching his butt right there in the hallway. He leapt off the ground as if electrocuted, but came down with a grin.

"What was that all about?" he asked, chuckling. "Someone will see us!"

"Fuck 'em if they can't take a joke," said Linda. "You two are adorable."

"Listen, Linda," I assured her, "Those guys aren't going to do anything to you. It's me they're pissed off at, and Sly for getting them in trouble. I don't even think they're that mad at Taine. They want me."

Linda nodded, her fears seemingly assuaged, but her worry for me was written all over her pretty face. She reached out a hand and gently grasped my bare forearm.

"Rick," she said in an urgent, quiet tone. "Be careful."

I assured her that I would, and then Taine surprised me by speaking up in a firm, confident voice.

"Nothing's going to happen to Rick," he said. "I'll make sure it doesn't."

Linda smiled indulgently at the suddenly-protective Taine, but I could see by his hot blush that he took it as condescension. He turned and walked off to class without a word.

As I was walking down the school hallway between my second and third period classes, the second interesting event of the day occurred. I could see Kevin Gorman, gauze still taped to his head to protect the wound I had inflicted, standing at the door of Mr. Salcedo's history class with his girlfriend, the lissome young cheerleader Tawny Watkins.

Suddenly filled with anger about my dog, Sly's car, and the Charger, not to mention my almost-overwhelming rage at him for bullying my Babes, I began to approach him. He and Tawny both looked up from their conversation, eying me suspiciously. Kevin took a half-step around Tawny, sliding in front of her protectively, and looked at me with defiance, but I could see fear in his eyes.

"Don't talk to me, psycho," said Kevin, all but shoving Tawny into Mr. Salcedo's room and following quickly behind her.

This was new for me, having a guy Kevin's size being so afraid of what I might do that he felt the need to flee with his girlfriend into the safety of a classroom.

I didn't know quite what to make of it, and found it somewhat disturbing to realize that I had a slight smile playing on my lips. But...wait a minute. If he was afraid of me, why would he be brazenly killing my dog and trashing Sly's car? Why would he be following Linda around in a beat-up Charger when he and most of his friends drove expensive Mercedes or BMWs? I hurried to my third period class, deciding that I would attempt to process this new information at a later time.

After class, I headed to the cafeteria to meet Taine. I found him already sitting at our table, but rather than picking listlessly and silently at his food as usual, he seemed agitated and eager to talk. I slid my tray onto the table, surveyed my leathery chicken-fried steak with congealed country gravy, and raised my eyes to meet his. They were blazing!

"Did you see?" he began, his expression animated and upset. "Did you see what Linda did?"

I was perplexed. "What did she do?" I asked.

"I said I wouldn't let anything happen to you, and she laughed! She fucking laughed!"

"She didn't laugh, Babes," I explained. "She was smiling because she thought it was cute that you were being so protective of me."

"She laughed!" Taine insisted heatedly. "She was being patronizing because...well, what you said! She thought it was 'cute'. I'm not 'cute,' I'm a man!"

"You're my cute man," I grinned, but instantly realized from the defiant look on Taine's face that I'd made a mistake.

"Yeah, you'll see how 'cute' I am," he said firmly.

I arched an eyebrow in confusion. I was taken aback by the seriousness of his tone, and wondered just what I'd led myself into.

Taine's mood seemed to lighten after that, and I eventually told him what had happened with Kevin and Tawny in front of Mr. Salcedo's class, making sure to include my observations about his friends' cars and the fear in his eyes.

My thoughtful, deliberative angel took in everything I told him, and I could see him processing it as he slowly chewed his enriched wheat biscuit. Finally, he swallowed the last of the cud-like mass and looked up at me seriously.

"It's not Kevin's friends," he said. "I mean, your dog and my dad's car was Kevin's friends, but not the Charger. Not the Charger. I don't know who it is, Ricky, but that doesn't make any sense."

"I mean, it could be..." I tried to qualify my statement, but Taine raised a finger to silence me. One thing about Taine which I had come to learn was that he would silently consider the ins and outs of any possibility, but once he voiced his opinion, that was it. It was set in stone and there would be no dislodging it with further consideration.

The rest of the day passed quickly, and other than a brief conversation with Linda in which I cautioned her about being too maternal or condescending toward Taine, nothing else happened of note.

* * * * *

After I got home and fed the birds, I checked with Tynah about spending the night at the Maxwell home. Sly had invited me over, knowing that I had been a good boy the day before and had paid my dues to Tynah and Rex by making my presence known at home, but decided that Taine and I needed to spend some time together. Rex had signed off on my overnight absence, and Tynah considered it for a moment before giving her assent.

"Normally, I'd think it was strange for a high school boy to sleep over at another boy's house," she said, wiggling her eyebrows with a suggestive leer. "But you are going through so much lately...I think maybe you two need to stick together for a while."

I nodded gravely, not failing to note that Tynah was making a joke of who Taine and I -- unbeknownst to her -- really were. To Tynah, gay people were jokes on television. They were Paul Lynde, Charles Nelson Reilly and Rip Taylor. Silly, campy people who jokingly hinted of unspeakable perversions, but in the end were just powder-puff comical creations, throwing confetti and mincing around a stage to delight "normal people."

I didn't let my expression reveal my inner thoughts. After all, if Tynah had even considered the true nature of my relationship with Taine to be a realistic option, in the realm of actual possibility, she would never have agreed to let me spend the night, and would probably have dragged me kicking and screaming to her fire-and-brimstone Methodist church to be "saved," whatever that meant.

I didn't need saving. I needed Taine.

And so it was that I loaded up my backpack with schoolbooks and a change of clothes for the next day and rode my bicycle over to the Maxwell house, scruffy little Meatball yapping and nipping at my heels for as long as his stubby, gnarled legs would let him run.

When I got there, I found Sly examining his newly-painted, well-restored Lambo in the driveway. He smiled as I coasted my bike to a stop in front of him.

"How ya doin', Rick?" he said with a jovial grin. "Come on inside."

He waved me into the house after him, and I dropped my bike by the garage door and followed. Sly had prepared a real Italian feast for us, with lasagna, garlic bread, steaming hot squash and homemade cannoli for dessert. It was all absolutely delicious. Taine was fairly quiet during the meal, but kept giving me strange, sidelong glances and nudging my Reeboks with his Jegs under the table. I wasn't accustomed to this side of Taine, and didn't really know how to react, but kept up a light conversation with Sly all the same.

After we had rinsed off all the dishes and loaded them into Sly's wide, modern dishwasher, Taine's dad grabbed his keys, gave us each a semi-crushing hug and a kiss on the forehead, and announced that he was going out for the evening. I blushed, aware that Sly knew full well what we would be getting up to, and was giving us the space to do so.

Taine had already taken his shower while I was at my house, so I jumped in to take a quick rinse as well after Sly had left for his date with Ms. Ogretz. I was very much taken with the showers in the Maxwell home, as they were large and spacious, with water just as hot as I wanted it -- I preferred my showers scalding -- and variable strength which I could crank up to the velocity of a high-pressure hose.

I dried myself as I left the bathroom, not bothering to put on any clothes. I knew Taine and I had some serious loving to catch up on, and I was eager to get started. I made my way into his room, but didn't see him anywhere. Shrugging, I stretched myself out nude on his bed, my pulsing erection already slapping my stomach in anticipation of our coming passion.

It would be only our second sexual experience together, and I imagined that it would proceed much as the first, with lots of kissing and cuddling, Taine taking a passive, innocently accepting and almost shy role as I explored his body with my hands, my mouth and my penis, filling him with slow, lingering pleasure which would continue throughout the night.

What I didn't realize was how much Linda's smile had belittled and upset him, and how much my overprotective nature had made him feel that he was being regarded as something less than masculine. My Babes now had something to prove, and I was about to experience the knowledge that we had awakened a sleeping tiger.

My first hint of this was when Taine ran into the room naked and pounced onto the bed on top of me, his beautiful cock already stiff and enraged, bouncing off his belly. This was not the bashful Taine of Sunday night, who had been almost demure in his shy acceptance of my physical attentions.

This time, Taine meant business.

With no preliminaries, he grabbed both of my wrists and gripped them tightly as he stretched above me, knees pushing my legs apart as he knelt between them. Growling passionately, Taine began hungrily kissing and biting at my lips, pressing his perfect mouth into mine. There was a wild, lust-filled look in his eyes as he ravished me, and I -- despite being completely taken by surprise -- was incredibly excited by it.

Gazing at me with at with an evil, seductive grin, Taine worked himself down my neck and chest, nipping at my pale throat with his teeth and lashing my nipples with his tongue. When he got down to my right nipple, he bit down hard, then licked the pain away as I gasped with pleasure, feeling his love bite in every nerve of my young body.

Taine stopped briefly, resting back on his heels between my outstretched legs. He leaned over and removed a pink bottle from under the duvet, then squeezed some of the baby lotion into his hand, slicking his steely, reddened erection without breaking eye contact with me. I didn't know who this person was in Taine's body, but I liked him.

"You're gonna get it now," he growled in a voice deep and husky with lust. I smiled seductively, giving him the okay -- as if he would have taken "no" for an answer, in the ridiculously unlikely event that I would have given it.

He slapped a hand between my legs, and I felt the cool lotion between my cheeks as he quickly slid a slick finger into my tight, hairless pucker. He worked the finger around inside me, warming the lotion and driving me crazy. After a time, he withdrew it, still smiling and never breaking eye contact.

Roughly, he pulled my legs apart so they were resting across each of his smooth, pale thighs. Then he leaned forward over me, holding himself up with his left hand as he used his right to guide his hard, glistening erection toward my well-lubed opening. Lunging forward with another deep growl, he buried himself inside me.

Unlike my experience with Jeff, this intrusion was entirely welcome and only hurt for a second. The pain of anal sex is never at the opening, because the first sphincter is under voluntary muscle control. It's the second, which is under the control of the subconscious, which causes any problems, which is why the passive partner in such endeavors is always told to relax. My feeling was that relaxation had nothing to do with it, and as consumed with passion and lust as I was at that moment, I was hardly what one would call relaxed. No, I thought, you just had to want it. And I did.

Oh, I did, and he gave it to me, hard and fast, jackrabbiting in and out of me with long, deep strokes, his tight, beautiful ass clenching beneath my hands as he pistoned his hot, steely-hard rod inside me. I was gasping, moaning, delirious with pleasure as he fucked me, and that's what it was. Taine wasn't making love to me. This was hot, sweaty, X-rated fucking, and he was proving a point to me in the most blunt, primal, and elemental manner possible.

And I got the point for the entire long, mind-blowing deep-dicking he was giving me until we both finally came together hard, screaming and grasping at each other's hot, sweaty flesh as we bucked against each other's hips and Taine shot wave after wave of his sweet, molten love deep inside me.

The point that Taine had so emphatically made, and reaffirmed with a meaningful look into my ecstatically satiated eyes, was that he wasn't my baby, or my ward, or a charity case. He wasn't some innocent, helpless angel who needed pity and indulgence.

He was a man.

He was MY man.

And, I thought as I curled up against his warm, beautiful body as he dozed, I would love him until the end of my days.