*All characters are 18+
Please enjoy chapter 2!*
Jared was at home and it was dark. Homework had been done, his new black eye had been fussed over, Grace had been said, dinner had been eaten, chores had been accomplished, and prayers had been muttered. When Jared got home, neither his mother nor father or his ten-year-old twin brothers had thought it unusual that Jared had put on an old turtleneck sweater when he got home. After all, Alfred Davis liked to keep the temperature to about sixty degrees to save on heating oil.
Now, after everyone was asleep, Jared had tiptoed into the bathroom. He wanted to see it. He wanted to look at it and touch it just to prove to his shell-shocked mind that what had happened that afternoon, had indeed happened. He looked into the mirror and one of his eyes was a swollen purple lump.
When he hooked his fingers into the high baggy neck of the old blue sweater and pulled it down, he half expected to see nothing but his smooth pale skin. Standing there in a sharp contrast to his skin however, was the hickey. The hickey was huge and dark. It was the size and shape and color of a ripe strawberry.
Jared touched it gently, and fresh memories flooded his mind and set his groin on fire as he touched the sensitive bruised flesh.
Jared was young, and the thoughts of Darryl, and Darryl's hands, and Darryl's mouth had filled his head until he thought that his family would see the terrible things he was thinking of, and throw him out. That's how loud and proclaiming and colorful his thoughts had been. Lightning had not fallen from the sky, or fire, or anvils. He nearly expected his mother's favorite decoration, a large varnished crucifix that hung on the wall in the dining room, to crack in two, or maybe even crumble to ashes.
Jared had been raised a devout Catholic, but now he was having his doubts.
The crucifix was still standing there, unblemished. Their house still stood, the earth hadn't shaken, and the rivers had not turned to blood. Why did he feel so afraid?
Jared shook the God-fearing thoughts from his head. Screw God and the entire church. He would slit his wrists with rusty butter-knives before letting his family know that he didn't like girls, but he wasn't going to deny the one good thing that had ever happened to him to appease a petty God.
Jared shuddered. "Sorry." He whispered timidly.
He sighed. He had come in here to masturbate, not pray, but suddenly it seemed like praying was the right thing to do.
He didn't get down on his knees like his parents had taught him. These were his informal prayers, his real prayers. He stood by the nickel faucet and closed his eyes and whispered a short to-the-point prayer.
"God? I like men. You probably know that already, being the Almighty and all. I really don't know how You feel on the subject. They are very clear about it in the Bible, but the Bible was written by men, men like Henry Jenkins and Victor Duke and Allen Hutchens. I really don't think that You, the real You, would have a problem with it. Just putting that out there. Thank you God, and good night."
Jared believed in God, and he always would. But he could not believe in the scripture. That would have killed him. Feeling slightly blasphemous, he masturbated quietly in the bathroom to thoughts of Darryl's big warm hands, urinated, brushed his teeth and went to bed.
---
Darryl went through a slightly similar phenomenon. He had been an atheist his entire life, but what he appealed to was his sense of honor.
'He's just a KID!!!' One side of his personality moaned.
'He loved it, and he asked to come back!' argued the other.
Darryl came to no real conclusion, but the mental argument lasted until three in the morning when he finally fell asleep. When his alarm clock woke him up at 6:30, he found out that he had squirted in the middle of the night, like a randy teenager.
---
The bubble of peaceful happiness that surrounded Jared that day at school was quickly and viciously popped when he saw the three boys who had cornered him last afternoon. His eye throbbed in a sudden reaction. Henry's eyes were slitted with fury. The other two boys looked uneasy and Allen's throat was swollen and red.
Jared quickly ducked into a nearby classroom and took a few deep breaths. He wasn't out of the woods with those boys. Not by a long shot.
---
He kept his head down all day, and right after his last class, calculus, he darted into the basement, making sure none of them were following him. He was pretty sure that Victor had Auto Shop outside, and that Henry and Allen were both in Geometry on the other side of the building, but he didn't breathe easily until he had slipped into Darryl's flat.
He smiled shakily and felt a knot of tension unravel in his stomach. Suddenly this one-room flat seemed more like home then any place he had been in his entire life.
The room was lit by a bare lightbulb hanging from the ceiling. The bed was a twin bed and it was covered by a few army-regulation blankets and a frayed homemade quilt. He didn't have a kitchen exactly, but he had a heating pad and a sink and a scarred carpenters table and an old Frigidaire. The table was covered in a blue tablecloth with a pile of mismatched dishes and cups. Dry goods were stored in milk crates under the table. His clothes were presumably in an old wooden traveling chest.
The room smelled of coffee and tobacco and wood shavings and an old dry smell. A pleasant smell. Darryl didn't smoke cigarettes, but he smoked a bowl of tobacco once a day. That had been one of the many things Jared had learned yesterday, and he treasured everything he knew about the wonderful older man.
Jared set his worn book satchel down on the floor and hung his light spring jacket on the bedpost. He wanted to make coffee for the two of them. Coffee seemed like an integral part of there connection, after all.
Jared eyed the flouncy pink apron that hung off a hook on the wall. He put it on. Wearing the apron was nice. It was a throwback to the days when he had been a very young boy and people had still screamed with laughter when he stole his mother's makeup and clumsily applied it, trying to 'Make pretty on my face'.
When he reached a certain age, such capers had no longer been 'precious' or 'darling'. They had become 'sissy' and 'queer'.
Jared put water in the battered tin pot and poured a handful of shiny black coffee beans into a wooden hand grinder. He knew how to do it; his Grandfather had showed him how. He loved how the room was a mix of vintage and modern.
"Damn, you look like an adorable little wife in that apron."
Jared jumped a little and felt his face flush with embarrassment and pleasure. Darryl was standing in the doorway, smiling and looking at him with those gleaming blue eyes. Jared felt the hickey on his neck throb, and that wasn't the only part of him that did.
