A Second Christmas Miracle for Jimmy and Jesse

by BillyC

24 Dec 2016 2187 readers Score 9.1 (84 votes) PDF Mobi ePub Txt


The last fiction I wrote was 20 months ago - everything since then has been more of my autobiographical literary diarrhea. There's more of that coming - or CUMMING - but first I wanted to return to some of my fictional friends and visit them at the holidays. Here's a continuation of a story I wrote two years ago about two people miraculously finding each other and love which wasn't so much fiction as an alternate universe version of my husband and me. Here, two years later, Jimmy and Jesse have made a life together and help others realize their own Christmas miracles. 


A Second Christmas Miracle for Jimmy and Jesse

by BillyC

[email protected]

It had been two years since Jesse broke through my emotional Great Wall that Christmas evening we’d hooked up after closing the kitchen at the shelter. These years had not always easy, but even the difficult times were always worth it. Both of our lives were changed forever, for the better being an understatement of epic proportions.

Jesse and I moved in together almost a year ago, after a cautious first thirteen months or so. If you looked at it in hindsight, we’d wasted thirteen months trying to be smart by maintaining our separate apartments, forcing ourselves to spend some nights apart because that’s what everyone said was healthy. The truth of it was it hadn’t been healthy for us, and once we actually lived together it was like a last piece fell into place for us that had not quite fit before. The essence of the truth was that it took me that long . . . to let go of my past, to embrace my present and future, to believe in it . . . and Jesse.

At twenty-five years old, after a tritely horrendous start to my adult life as a gay man, I finally felt grounded, optimistic and secure – the latter of the two I don’t think I’d ever believed I could accomplish. It wasn’t all Jesse being my anchor, though he was emotionally that to me now, certainly. I’d somehow finally got past being terrified of him breaking it off suddenly, figuring out or deciding in a moment hat I was worthless and unworthy of him and his love, leaving me bereft, like my family having disowned me when I no longer hid and denied that I was gay. Jesse and I were even buying a small house together now, thanks to both of us progressing in our professions and a stroke of luck with the small trust my grandmother had left me. Somehow some of her portfolio that was in the trust when it was bequeathed to me was a start-up pharmaceutical company that had taken eight years but finally hit the bigtime in a big way, and my small number of shares became valuable enough to make a decent down payment on a house in a market that we’d never have been able to before, without devastating the principal too much to have a little safety net.

I had my career path burgeoning ahead of me. I’d excelled in college – mostly because that’s what my grandmother primarily wanted to achieve with her bequest, but also because in the back of my being I was driven to show up my parents’ and siblings’ divestiture of me by becoming successful. When I met Jesse I had two years of grad school under my belt and was a minimum of two years younger than most of the other students in my psych course path at USC. Now, I’d taken my master’s, am almost through my clinical trials to be accredited to do my orals, having just finished my thesis. Jesse called me a prodigy, but I was far from it, though I acknowledged that my priority on my studies and hard work had put me well ahead of most of my peers.

Having the joy of working in my field, after numerous internships, stoked me toward the finish line. I’d wanted to become a therapist to help people who’d suffered the kind of emotional devastation I had, to help them avoid the isolation and self-destructive protectionism and self-punishment I’d put myself through. When one of the clinics at USC that had a large constituency of young gay patients – oh, wait – we weren’t calling them that anymore, that had changed while I was going through my course of studies and we now called them clients – had an opening for an assistant and chose me, I was thrilled. Now, as a practitioner for the same practice after achieving my master’s, it was often arduous and emotionally draining to work with people whose damage made what I lived through seem like child’s play. But Jesse was my one-man cheering section and support system, and he helped me through the rough, high emotion low points and propped me up when the stress of that and my studies seemed overwhelming.

It was Thanksgiving night after we’d left the shelter, still taking the bus to and from to avoid having a car vandalized or worse, having the people we helped at the shelter where we’d met feel the distance between our circumstance and theirs all the more for our relative resources. Jesse held my strong hand in his bigger, stronger one, as always, but suddenly he squeezed it and said, “Twenty-four months today.”

Taking a beat for my brain to catch his meaning, I squeezed his hand back, tighter, and turned to look at him. His amazingly iridescent green eyes were sparkling in the harsh glare of the bus’s interior fluorescents, and the heavenly smile on the manly face I’d fallen in love with was beaming. I made a show of looking at my phone display with my other hand. “In about an hour from now, exactly.” That was about the time we’d first made love. Yes, we fucked like wild men, but we’d made love, whether we acknowledged it during, realized it later or somewhere in between.

Jesse’s manly face went from beaming to a grin and a guffaw. He disengaged his hand and briefly grabbed my crotch. “Some time keeper ya got there, stud!” teasing me as he did a lot about how sexual I’d become.

In truth, I had become wildly oversexed . . . with him . . . because of him. He wouldn’t let that first night be a hookup – he was determined to have more of me – and I could never repay that magnificent act of faith and generosity. Nor could I repay the countless times he’d borne with me through my insecurities as I seesawed through the emotional roller coaster of coming to terms with my deep-seated but very easily traced insecurities. But never did the sex suffer . . . and frankly it helped us get through my tough times.

“I was thinking how very blessed we are, Jim. We have this wonderful life, we just bought a home of our own, we’re both doing work we love and doing well at it . . . “ he trailed off there, still holding my gaze, squeezing my hand again, his eyes getting just the slightest bit wet as the bus lurched its way down Wilshire.

Leaning over, he met me and our lips joined for a sweet but uncharacteristically chaste kiss – we may be out, we may hold hands, but we didn’t go far in public to challenge the increasing levels of tolerance around us. “You’re still my Christmas miracle every day, Jess,” I told him softly, both of us pulling back into our relaxed but semi-squashed seating.

Jesse is a bruiser. A bodybuilder when I met him, his career progression, his aging and our relationship hasn’t wreaked any havoc on his dedication. His shoulders are so vast that once, when we were with a family at the shelter that had two kids around five and six years old, he took both of them on his shoulders for a run around, and they both sat there not having to cling, nowhere near sliding off those wide seats they had there where his traps met his big shoulder caps. And he is BUILT. At thirty-six (I’d had no idea he was eleven years older than I when I met him) he is SOLID muscle and lots of it. He’s not model handsome, but he’s beautiful to me in every way. Below the chin he’s one archetype of male perfection. Facially he’s certainly far from movie star gorgeous, but he’s far from unattractive either; and what I see when I look at him is the most appealing, most wonderful man I’ve ever known. Some of his agelessness manifests itself in the middle-of-the-road face. But to me, in my eyes and heart, he really is the sexiest, kindest, gentlest, most beautiful man on Earth.

By contrast to Jesse, I’m more like a short stop. I’m half a head shorter than Jesse, standing an honest five-eight to his six-one, nearly six-two. Wish Jesse’s help and inspiration I’ve leaned down even more than I was when I thought I was skinny, but I’ve added muscle so that I’m wiry and hard-muscled all over.

But even with me being much smaller and, importantly, narrower than Jesse, we still spill off the bus seat on the days we go work at the shelter that will always be a sacred place to us because it’s where we met.

“So,” he picked up again, startling me out of my very warm musings about us, “I was talking to Audrey, and we were talking about it being the ‘miracle season’ as you’ve dubbed it because it’s when we met, and she said something about how much we give back at the shelter, but it got me thinking.”

“Uh, oh, there you go again. I keep telling you to leave the thinking to the almost-PhD in the family, and stick to the parts that require brawn,” I teased him.

Jesse’s eye-roll and grin made my heart jump – as they did my cock – as always. “I’ll show you brawn when we get home, stud!” he shot right back. Then, again uncharacteristically grave, “But really, I was thinking how lucky we are and how maybe we could do more . . . for someone who needs the kind of break we got.”

I didn’t contradict him, but we didn’t get “a break.” HE had an insight and risked his gargantuan heart and gave me a gift of inestimable value – the opportunity to live a full, rewarding life, full of love every day. I managed to choke out over my impulse to sob, “So, any ideas?”

Jesse’s the kind of guy any poker shark would want to spend a weekend with at a high stakes table. His face is always showing exactly what he feels and thinks. It was no different when he changed his tone to near-apprehension and said, “I was thinking that ex-SEAL, the one who goes by ‘Bull’ who seems so shattered inside and closed-off outside.” To say my mind reeled would be an understatement.

Bull, as we knew him, was exactly that – a huge bull of a man, what Jesse would be like if instead of a bodybuilder he was a hulking kill machine and far less attractive than he wasn’t already! “Jess,” I started, but he cut me off. Actually it was good he cut me off. My mind was a jumble of everything from the impossible prospect of getting through to a man we’d seen for almost two years and had never made any headway with to the other end of my scale of thought being if he was to be another Christmas miracle, were we going to . . . do what with him?

“Just hear me out on this, Jim. Bull is not that much unlike you were when we met.” When I went to protest, he shushed me and left my thoughts to stew. “Just open your mind for a minute. Bull is so broken inside: he’s timid, talks briefly if that, so very grateful for even the smallest kindness, grateful for everything in fact, but he clearly is in a bad place. If we could just get him to open up—“

“Whoa, hang on here,” I cut him off. “You know as well as I do that you can’t force someone to want to face their demons, no matter how worthy or good or needy they are. It’s something they have to do and want to do.” And unless we had him in bed whimpering in ecstasy as Jesse had me, well . . .

Jesse’s eyes glistened again. “Like you didn’t want to do two years ago?” he asked simply, not joking, just pointing out that the off-chance sometimes happens.

Starting to protest, to tell him that was different, I had been different, and his intimacy was what had touched me, I realized it wasn’t different, not at all. Jesse showed me kindness, and I responded to it. Sure, we had mind-blowing sex to propel us into and through the tough parts of pulling my head out of my ass, but still . . . “Point well taken,” I conceded simply.

“So I’m thinking we reach out to him – in as subtle, non-threatening way as we have to – and see if we can draw him out a little. Offer him our friendship – more than kind words at the shelter – and see how we can help him.”

It sounded so easy, and Jesse was so genuine in his desire to give back to someone in as meaningful a way as possible, to do something more than what we already did. And his co-conspirator, Audrey Kane, our dear senior citizen friend who had shown me an incredible kindness years ago when she thought I was homeless, well leave it to her to instigate helping someone.

Audrey is a hoot. Terribly disadvantaged financially, having only her Social Security to live on, she still has to work but bears the burden with grace, even at seventy-one years old. She does have a decent job, though part-time, as a checkout person at a market; and since that’s a union job, she gets benefits that do more for her than Medicare. So when we, quite-by-accident, my lover assures me, found the perfect little house that had a “mother-in-law” suite attached to it, well of course we asked Audrey to move in. The arrangement was new, but it was a winner, we were all sure. Audrey had nobody, and neither did either of us besides ourselves. So now she had us, and we had her. And she wanted to spread the wealth more, apparently.

“Let’s make it a plan,” I told my wonderful boyfriend without any clue how to go about this. And so, we talked the rest of the way to Mar Vista, where we’d bought our little post-war plot at Trump Tower prices, or so it seemed to us, about how we would try to engage Bull and what we might do to help him.

And when we got home I showed Jesse just how awesome I think he is in the way we both enjoy the most. I’d given him the signal that I had “plans” for him when we’d got off the bus on National, three blocks from our house. That way there would be no misunderstanding that after we’d checked in with Audrey, he was to report forthwith to our own private pleasure chamber, get himself naked, as would I, and we would GO AT IT.

We did, and not so quietly as we’d intended. Jesse stoked my every passion, and when he was naked and those fur-covered muscles and bubble butt and big cock of his were in my sight, I couldn’t help but to pounce on him. We semi-crashed against and then onto the bed, causing some dislocation of the heavy, king-sized bed frame that had dominated his tiny bedroom when we met. We’d kept the bed – I never wanted to sleep anywhere else, anywhere other than the first bed I’d had a man hold me tight and safe and loved in. Well, and a few other “firsts”.

We giggled like idiots among our grunts as the bed crashed against the wall and far side night stand, ultimately sending it and our fortunately indestructible lamp toppling with a clatter of other junk we’d left there. We were well past safe sex, having been monogamous for two years and both, mercifully, clean as confirmed by six months of testing. After some humping against each other, face-sucking and biting, I’d glommed a glob of lube from the tub of fisting lube we liked best and kept handy and had breached his hungry fuckhole with my wanton hardon without mercy.

“AAAAAAAAAAAA!” he gasped in a shout that no way Audrey couldn’t hear even at the other end of our small house. I shushed him with my mouth, clamping it on his again as I began to thrust HARD and FAST inside him. I couldn’t help it – he ignited my nuts every fucking time.

Jesse bit my lip almost as hard as his cunt clenched around my cock as it assaulted him, and through clenched teeth growled, “Oh, God, Jimmy, don’t ever stop. Just FUCK ME!” Of course I did.

For whatever grace had been bestowed on me, despite jacking off about ninety-seven percent of the time I got off before I met Jesse, I am a slow cummer. True, with my cock, as big as it is, sometimes that’s not an advantage; but fortunately for both of us Jesse is a rough, tough fucker and loves it. Yeah, he’s a bit of a pain pig that way, too, I’ve found out, and the more brutal and painful it is the harder he gets off, but I try not to “shrink” people when I’m off duty, and in this case I just go with it and thank the Universe for sending us to each other.

We were sweating, and our sturdy bed frame held but our box springs was creaking like a fifty-seven Chevy with bad springs and shocks going down a rutted road. “FUCK yeah, just like THAT. OH FUCK YEAH. Do it, baby, take me there!” Jesse was moaning and growling and pleading as I slam-fucked him in the way he likes best. His encouragement, of course, fueled my fervor, and I ASS-aulted him even harder. “OH GOD – OHGOD – OH JIMMY YESSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS!” he was crying out as I felt the familiar spasms begin around my cock from the depths of his fuckchute to his cuntring, and then I felt his wild cumspray.

If I’m a fuck-maniac or fuck-machine, both of which my good sport of a sexual playmate calls me, among other things, he’s the spraymaster. He cums SO much and it sprays so wildly, almost all porn stars would be jealous. It’s not long, tidy ropes of cum, but truly a spray. And one of the awesome things about him is, even that first night when I fucked his torrential load out of him, he neither apologized nor gloated about it then like most men that aesthetically virile do and would do, and only when we’re in a role play does he do that now. Instead he thanks me with love and admiration and obvious satiation. That self-security in and of itself is very erotic to me, and every time, just like now, his cum explosion – of course along with his body spasming like a possessed teenager during an exorcism and his wild shouts of ecstasy – propels me to the edge with similar force.

His spasms stopped, and his cum was everywhere, our bodies a slick, sweaty mess as I plowed on momentarily, to his encouragement. “FUCK YEAH, STUD! LOVE the way you FUCK me. Now FUCK ME FULL OF YOU. PLEEEEEEEEEEEEEEZE FILL ME WITH YOUR SEED!” he begged. “Knock me up, Jimmy!”

My nuts had reacted to his cuntmuscles working me, and I was well on my way hurtling over the edge. “OH YEAH, JIMMY – LOVE the way your cock gets even huger inside me, hard like steel, fucking GIVE IT TO ME!” he urged, milking my cock with his venerable cuntmuscles. “YEAHHHHHHHHHHHH!” he shouted as my body surrendered to his dirty talk and cuntwork, convulsed, seized and my nuts exploded.

The blast ripped through me, just as my cum blasted out of me into the man of my dreams. Before I could put coherent thought together as I pumped my essence into him my brain struggled to unite two senses that were squelched as I came – his lips moving and the sound of his voice. Both were distant, and I had to work to make those sensory receptions be processed into what they were – seeing and hearing him say the exact thought that floated over and enveloped me as I plummeted over the edge into nirvana – “I love you SO much!”

When I could speak again, now limp on him, still inside him, that part of me far from limp, I gasped out next to his ear between struggled breaths, “I. love. you. Jess. Don’t. ever. Leaveme!” To that Jesse’s musclebound arms and legs wrapped more tightly around me, and he caressed my cock with his fuckchute hugging me there as well. “Always, babe. Always.”

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Audrey had left us something to eat, something Paleo-compliant, Jesse’s strict regimen, which I’d adopted. My guess, though I’d never be so vulgar to think it about her, even if I knew it was true, was that she’d changed her original plans and put out a more robust meal when she heard us and knew we’d need more energy replenished. No proof, no desire to broach the subject to get confirmation; just patterns which seemed obvious, in the type and quantity of her offerings over the short time she’d been part of our household, which clearly supported the theory.

As I scarfed down some salmon that could rival anything served in the finest fish restaurants in Seattle, I joked to Jesse, “You know, if we were REALLY kind souls and REALLY helped Bull, it would be to find someone for him to rut with just like we have.”

“Might need some more work to really define that regimen so that we can replicate it,” he teased me.

I was already standing up out of my stool, standing with my feet on the stool’s foot rest to get my small self farther, leaning across the little kitchen bar and kissed him quick and loud. “Bring it on,” he grinned, his face millimeters from mine. Salmon breath notwithstanding, WE did . . . though we went to our bedroom again, one of the few worthwhile concessions we’d had to make after moving in here and having Audrey with us.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

We didn’t get to sleep until much later than we intended that night, and when Jesse kissed my neck to awaken me, as always his arms around me tight as he spooned me, he whispered, “Last night was fucking AWESOME!”

I mumbled, “Awesome fucking, you mean.”

“Awesome everything!” he returned so close behind my ear and so forcefully pulled me into him that he startled me fully awake.

In a flash I was on top of him, him face down, me having flipped around and having pushed him down faster than he could say WTF.

Rubbing my morning hardon in his still slimy crack, teasing his hole, I growled into Jesse’s ear, “I hope you woke me with enough time for me to do what you made me NEED to do!” And with that I pushed inside him deep, relentlessly, to a long shout that morphed into a moan as I bottomed-out inside him and ground my pubes into him HARD to get even a fraction of a millimeter deeper. “Because if we both get fired because we’re late, it’s YOUR ass I’m putting out on the boulevard to make the mortgage payment!” Jesse pushed back into my already frenzied thrusts and continued to moan and growl into the mattress.

That’s the way we started our day – me filthy-talking him all the way until I jackhammered his p-spot until he came hard again, right as I was already busting my own nut deep inside him again. It was a great way to start any day . . . until Jesse kissed me quickly and said, “C’mon, we’re both going to be late if we don’t hit the shower NOW.”

“You’d better go first, and I’ll go put the coffee on. Otherwise, if we shower together, we definitely WILL be late,” I declared certainly, giving him a swat on his hard-muscled ass.

“You keep that up, and we won’t even make the shower,” he threw back at me with an evil grin, wiggling his still-gaping hole at me.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

We did engage Bull. It wasn’t easy at all. One or both of us would make it a point to go and sit with him at the shelter when he was there. We’d adjusted our times to try and be there more when he knew he would. As I said, not easy. He flinched the first time I sat down next to him . . . and I’m the little, unthreatening one!

Three weeks later, we’d established a friendship of sorts with Bull. It was often tentative on his part, but we’d spent the time, both of us separately and together, allowing Bull his own time to open, however minimally, to us.

One of the things we’d found out was the he was, in fact homeless. Not because he had to be, but more because he didn’t interact well with neighbors. The shelter was a place he came, in his words, to force himself to be social, to try to salvage and preserve his social skills, however diminished they were. I, of course, thought that was tremendously insightful. He went to the Y to shower several times a week, paying a small fee since he wasn’t a member but was allowed as a veteran. He went to the VA a couple of times a month for a group session that he always found helpful but often couldn’t bring himself to go to. He also told us he went to the laundromat in the very wee hours of the morning so as to avoid as many people as possible, and he tried to avoid people by staying to himself at the beach when it wasn’t raining and finding somewhere to wait it out under an old poncho he had when it was. Those facts gave us much insight, since knowing he was homeless but seeing him considerably cleaner than most we saw at the shelter had been a conundrum.

We’d also found out that he had a small pension because he’d been discharged after an injury that left him unable to be in combat. With the many cuts in the military, he wasn’t offered an alternate post, despite being an expert with weapons. I’d managed with great difficulty to find out that his injury was physical, and with my limited skills of analysis and diagnosis, that his only apparent PTSD was his anti-social tendencies, that he himself was trying to fight. I’d also learned from him that a great part of his social difficulty was because he felt “unworthy” after being “kicked to the curb by the navy”. It was obvious that Jesse wasn’t as off-base about his circumstance and cause as I’d originally thought, a revelation that I showed due appreciation to Jesse for MANY times in all the ways we both so enjoy!

Really, in a very short time, we’d gotten through and gotten a lot out of Bull. He still was exceptionally timid, tentative and surprised at any kindnesses. We’d invited Bull to come to dinner at our house about a week before Christmas on a Friday, when we weren’t helping at the shelter. After we got through his initial surprise and suggestion that we probably had better things to do than spend more time on him, he was offended when we offered to pick him up. He told us he could get to Mar Vista from downtown on his own, thank you very much. Well alrighty then – acceptance was the objective, and he seemed set on joining us.

When Bull showed up, I’m not sure how he’d got there, nor was I aware of how or where he got much nicer clothes than the ratty, usually slightly dirty ones he usually wore when we saw him at meals we dished out at the shelter. Audrey had insisted on being part of it, and she was cooking up a storm in our kitchen when Bull, rather tentatively, stepped inside the front door.

Bull’s nickname was appropriate. Tall, solid and muscular, guns nearly as big as Jesse’s and thick thighs to match, thick-necked, big barrel-chest, shaved head, a dragon tattoo snaking its tail up his neck on the left side and decorating his skull with a blast of fire from its mouth at the place where his widow’s peak would have been had he not shaved his hair. Yet all of that was embodying a very meek, still with us almost skittish demeanor.

“Relax, Bull, you’re among friends, and we’re glad to have you here,” I told him, Jesse smiling behind me as Bull stood a bit uncomfortably, his eyes downcast. .

“Our surrogate mother Audrey is in the kitchen cooking up a feast fit for three big, hungry men,” Jesse added, and put out his hand to shake Bull’s.

Bull started at the hand thrust, taking a step back, hitting the wall hard but then, very self-consciously apologized and put his palm into Jesse’s. As they shook, I took note of the size and meatiness of both their hands, Jesse’s having given me so much pleasure. I had to shake myself out of almost thinking about how Bull’s hands would feel on me.

I was sort of stalled, still holding the front door open in the wake of my momentary fantasy, and Bull had turned to me, his hand sort of hovering mid offer, mid retraction. This was, in retrospect, a HUGE step on his part – to initiate that kind of contact – but I was still too wrapped up in my nearly-inappropriate thoughts to reply immediately.

Audrey saved the day by rushing out of the kitchen, rubbing her hands on her apron like someone out of a fifties sitcom. “You must be Bull. I’m Audrey, and I do as much as I can to take care of these two,” she declared, throwing us a staged look of reluctant acceptance of our waywardness. “Do you have another name, young man,” she asked, looking over a foot up to make eye contact in front of him.

Bull, in a quiet voice, said, “Lewis, ma’am. Dale Lewis,” to Audrey, and for the first time ever we saw a bit of a smile from Bull. It looked oddly uncomfortable on him, but it also looked good to see him with some life behind his usually lifeless eyes. And the smile was of genuine kindness and goodness.

One of the few worthwhile things I’d learned from my father was that you could tell the basics about a man you needed to know from his handshake and by looking him in the eye. Of course my father said you could tell “everything” . . . but I chose to remember that he gave me some valuable insight, one of the few such things I could twist to a positive memory. Bull’s eyes had shown me many times his goodness, his honesty and his pain. His handshake with Jesse had shown me he could connect and got benefit from it. His smile at Audrey put it all together to confirm we’d made the right choice.

Audrey beamed up at Bull. “Well, if you don’t mind, I’d like to call you Dale. Would that be okay with you, young man?”

“Yes, ma’am, I’d like that,” Bull answered, surprisingly widening the smile to a grin. Audrey had that effect on people.

Jesse and I shot each other another look, and both Audrey and Bull picked up on it. “You guys can call me Dale, too,” Bull said meeky. “That is, if you want to, you guys having been so nice to me.”

I took a step to the side of Audrey and put out my hand to Bull. “Nice to meet you, Dale Lewis.” He shook, and made eye contact for a few moments, probably an eternity for him.

Audrey again moved things along. “All right, boys. Now that we’ve got this a little get together a little more familiar, why don’t you all come into the kitchen and let me give you some salad while the chicken finishes off.” She took Bull’s arm, and I noticed he didn’t flinch, he only stiffened momentarily before moving in step with her the short distance through our living room and dining recess and into the kitchen. I turned to Jesse after they went through, and he was grinning. He gave me a kiss – which took my breath away – and took my arm and began to follow them.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

After Audrey had stuffed us while she ate heartily for her, which meant almost none, of the delicious stuffed chicken and yams she’d made from scratch, when she went to gather dishes, Bull jumped up and took his plate from her hand and asked her to, “Please relax, ma’am. You’ve done all this, this is the least I can do.” He insisted that he’d do the dishes and told her again how delicious everything was. She told him as he walked to the sink, Jesse in tow having jumped up when Bull declared Audrey’s emancipation, that they’d find coconut cream pie in the refrigerator for us, but that she’d had enough and was going to retire. Bull rushed over and pulled her chair out for her as she stood up again.

“Such a gentleman,” she proclaimed, beaming up at him and then throwing us a staged reproachful look toward us. That got a full blush from ear to ear on Bull’s embarrassed face. Audrey patted Bull’s cheek, pulling his eyes back down to her. “And I hope we see a lot more of you around here, Dale. These two are good men, and you could have much worse friends. Just don’t let them get you into too much trouble!” she added, again with a staged eye-roll shot at us. “Now goodnight boys.” And as she was almost out into the back hall that led to her rooms she turned and said, “Oh, and if by chance you’re here in the morning, I make great flapjacks, even though these two insist I use almond flour and coconut butter. Humans have survived on eggs and wheat flour for centuries, so I don’t know why all you young health nuts have to . . . “ Her face had been mischievous when she’d said about him being here in the morning. GOOD LORD, I thought!

She trailed off mercifully at that point, waiving her hand to exemplify futility after Jesse and I interrupted her with a group hug and thank you’s. For my part, the “here in the morning” combined with her mischievous glance at us, had unnerved me. Her intimation was clear . . . and it struck me hard because that wasn’t what we had in mind at all, and I knew it wasn’t what Jesse intended either.

Still, giving Bull a once-over as he busied himself self-consciously at the sink, I couldn’t help but remind myself that Audrey often had good ideas. JESUS, there I went again!

“I’ll get the pie,” Jesse said, and I could tell by his hurrying-to-change-the-subject tone that he’d caught Audrey’s meaning, too. “You like coconut cream pie?” he asked Bull as he pulled out a mouth-watering pie.

Bull didn’t look up from the sink, and in the way we’d become used to conversing with him, he quietly said, “Yes, sir, I do.”

So, he’d picked up on it, too. The “sir” was the tell. When Bull felt at risk, the “sir” came out, like a second shield over the downcast eyes.

In my profession, knowing when to push and knowing when to let someone work through a disquieting thought was an art and a talent, but mostly it was a necessity. I made the decision that we needed to clear the air.

Giving Jesse a reassuring look, I stepped to the counter near Bull. “Bull,” I started, then began again. “Dale, about what Audrey said—“

“Jim,” Bull stopped me, “I know nothing comes for free. This wonderful dinner, the friendship you’ve offered—“

That time I stopped him, with a hand on his shoulder. “Bull, I hope you know me well enough to know my word is good. I give you my word we didn’t befriend you or ask you for dinner to get in a position to make you do anything you wouldn’t want to do. You’ve heard my life story, and you know I know about being suspect when people who don’t have to are nice to you after people who should be haven’t been. Neither Jesse nor I would ever put you or any other good person in that position.”

Jesse took a breath to speak – I saw him and shot him a glance because I also saw that Bull was thinking. His rinsing of the dishes had slowed, and he was nearly stopped, the water running next to the plate in his hand.

“What if I did want to?” Bull said, still looking down, the words at a nearly inaudible volume.

Jesse’s eyes were wide and he was looking at me with surprise, fear and excitement all at once.

“This isn’t a conversation men have without facing each other, Dale,” I gently told Bull’s back, pushing into the opening he’d given me.

I could tell Jesse was holding his breath while Bull remained almost motionless for a long moment. Finally, he slowly reached for the faucet and even more slowly stopped the water flow. When he turned, his eyes weren’t all the way downcast, but his gaze was slow to meet my eyes. When he did, he then looked at Jesse, whose face had reset to kindness.

Jesse was the one to talk. “We like you, Bull, and we’re all adults here. You’re a good man and a good friend, but Jimmy and I don’t fool around.”

I cringed at the term, but Bull didn’t. This time Bull’s embarrassment didn’t come with withdrawal. “I, uh,” he started, looking from Jesse to me and back again, “Well, I mean . . . “ We both just waited it out. “Well, fuck it!” he finally spat out, surprising both of us. “You two are hot as fuck – excuse my language in your kitchen,” he apologized, making us both smile. Then, in a different tone, he said, “I may be beaten down or up, probably both; I may be messed up from the war; I may not have many options as far as human contact because of the way I am, but I’m trying. But to be totally honest, I saw coming to your house as an opportunity to face some of that because I thought maybe there was a possibility I’d have to pay you back for your kindness with . . . well, you know.”

We were both stunned. Not unhappily, of course, having a hot, masculine man think we’re hot and scheme to get us naked and sweaty. But we were surprised mostly because that declaration from Bull was the longest set of words either of us had ever heard from Bull at any one time. AND he was looking us in the eye.

Our separate moments of reflection were interrupted when Bull continued. Again, in his quiet voice, his eyes now dropped again, he said, “But honestly as much as I wanted it, I couldn’t get myself to think that’s what you’d want, and I didn’t want to do anything to offend you after you’d been so nice to me.”

Jesse and I threw each other what-do-we-do-now glances, and he was noticeably thrown when he saw mine to him – I guess he thought I’d have the answer. And just like that I did have the answer, and fortunately it didn’t come from my dick!

“Bull, actually, we did have something we wanted to talk with you about, and we thought this night, this dinner, might be a good way to broach that with you. Why don’t we start there?” Bull looked both relieved but still embarrassed. “Oh, and by the way, you thinking we’re hot as fuck? Well, THANKS!” I threw on, causing his smile to return.

“And right back atcha, Bull,” Jesse threw in. “But seriously, we hadn’t planned to do anything like THAT. But maybe we’ll revisit that topic with you at some point, if that’s okay that we leave it an opening for future.”

Bull looked from him to me and then down again. “So,” to the floor, “What do you want to talk to me about now?”

“Let’s get some of that pie and sit down,” I suggested. “And since I know you can, Bull, can I ask that you don’t look down when we talk, and instead look at us? You have nothing to fear and nothing to be ashamed of with us, or with anyone for that matter. We’re your friends, Dale, and I know you want to start reconnecting again, so we’re a safe place to start.”

Bull didn’t hesitate and looked into my eyes with more intensity than I’d ever seen. It wouldn’t be a stretch to say his eyes glistened a little. “I will do that. Thank you for that.”

Once we had our pie we were all exclaiming loudly and enough that Audrey probably thought we were, actually, starting to fool around together there in the kitchen. For no sugar in it, for all natural ingredients, it was the richest, most tasty dessert I’d ever had. And that was saying something, given that Audrey had really spoiled us since she’d moved in with us.

“Bull,” I started, and Jesse shot me a look which made me restart with, “Dale, what we wanted to talk to you about was that there’s an opportunity we know of that might work really well for you, if you’re interested.” That got a look of extreme surprise and a healthy amount of fear in his eyes, darting from Jesse’s to mine and back again.

“Relax, Dale,” Jesse soothed, and he very slowly, very gently put his hand on Bull’s big, hard shoulder. “Relax, man – no obligation, just an opportunity. Because we think you’d be great for this.”

Tentative looks, quickly from Jesse to me, but I saw Bull’s upper body relax, notably his neck, where it looked like he’d been steeling himself for battle. Jesse rubbed his shoulder a little and then returned his hand to the table, satisfied that Bull was okay.

“The gym I am part of needs a general handyman, janitor, bouncer, basically a guy who can just be useful while the rest of us look pretty.” To that Bull snorted, a delightful sound and look on him. “Okay, well we’re focused on new members and training and managing the finances, and we need someone to manage the facility for us.”

He stopped, and Bull finally looked at me, like it was my turn. “There’s also a small apartment upstairs that has its own door to the outside that goes with the job. It hasn’t been occupied for a while and needs some work itself, but it’s there and would be rented to you separately from the job, so if the job didn’t work out, you wouldn’t be homeless all of a sudden.”

Bull’s eyes were wide. “Uh, I,” he stammered.

“It’s not just me making the decision. There are two other guys who have to agree to hire you, Dale, but if you’re interested in talking to them, I’ll make it happen tomorrow, if you’re good with that.”

Bull was very still, too still. I’d seen him freeze before, but never with his eyes locked on anyone, and they were on Jesse. Jesse, intuitively, held his gaze, though I know he wanted to look at me for a cue. Finally, Bull broke. Not broke the stare, but broke down, tears and all.

I put scooted my chair around next to his and put my arm around his big shoulders, without worry of startling him that time. “Hey, big guy, the pay sucks, and when you see the dive apartment, believe me you’ll need all these tears just for that!” I joked. But I had my arm around him, he hadn’t pulled away, and Jesse added his across mine.

It took a minute or two for Bull to pull himself together, and we were too close, the three of us, for him to look either of us in the eye easily, so he just hung his head and took a few long, loud breaths. Then, very haltingly, “I don’t know if I’m –“ He stopped there, and we didn’t push him. He straightened his shoulders and put his hands up, one on each of our arms around him. AMAZING for Bull. “I don’t know if I could live with myself if I let you down. I just don’t think I should—“

Jesse moved away enough to look Bull in the face. “Hey! Was that the attitude you had when you put on a uniform and risked your life for your country? Did you doubt yourself?” I was shocked. And so was Bull, based on his body tensing and his head snapping up. Jesse never waivered. “Look, Bull, you’re a little beaten down, but you’re a great man, a man for others to admire and to emulate. Everyone deserves a little help sometimes. I read once someone here who, after the riots twenty-some years ago started a foundation and said, ‘We’re not looking to give hand-outs. We’re just looking to give a hand.’ Friends help friends, Dale – and seriously, I’m going to call you that if it kills me to remember!” Jesse added, eliciting another, more punctuated snort from Bull, who I know was close to tears again. “It’s up to you, Dale, but I think you’d be good for it, and it’s the kind of job where you can be as social with the guys – mostly men, so again, probably comfortable for you – around the gym when you’re working or just fade into the background and do your work.”

He didn’t respond for a long time, and Jesse had stopped to give him time, as I was. At length, Bull looked up again, first at Jesse, then at me, then at Jesse again. His hands were still on my arm around his shoulder and Jesse’s outstretched, having moved to face him before and just left his hand on Bull’s mammoth shoulder. He squeezed both of us. “I don’t know if they’ll give me the job. I don’t know if I’ll be good at it. But I know I’ll do my best.”

We all whooped it up at that. Bull DID spend the night . . . in our guest room, after we drove him to collect his things from a small self-storage place we had no idea he had. I was grateful that there was no evidence he’d ever slept there – I’d heard about that and some terrible accidents.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

A week later, on Christmas eve, Audrey had worked herself to near death, and we had a spread that made me wonder if Christmas day dinner would be a disappointment compared to this. Bull – now and forever Dale, but still Bull in my head – was with us, having shut the gym at its early hour for the holiday and caught the bus to our house to join in. He and Jesse had also both suggested we invite a member of the gym they now both knew, a former air force engineer who worked at one of the aeronautics firms still in the Los Angeles area.

Mark was another BIG man. Built more like Jesse than Bull, but of the same huge proportions, and handsome enough I wondered why he wasn’t on the cover of fitness magazines, capturing the aspirations of other forty-year-old men. He was dark-haired, light-skinned and obviously smitten with Bull. And vice-versa!

What a difference a week made. We said a grace over dinner – something Mark asked if we were okay with and then made it short but very meaningful, about blessings, good friends, health, love and hopes for all people and peace, he gave Bull’s left hand, which he’d held in his right, an extra squeeze and a meaningful look before he let go. Mark’s left hand was in my right, and I got neither! LOL

Afterward, Audrey mock-accusingly and unabashedly, as was her way, said to us, “You boys had the boyfriend lined up, too, not just the job?” Mark, who’d been taking a drink of juice – none of us drank, even wine for Christmas eve dinner – almost did a spit shot at that, and Bull looked like a deer in the headlights. “What?” she demanded at them. “I’m old, but I’m not blind, and you two look like I bet these two looked the first time they met, and I already know you didn’t JUST meet.”

Bull and Mark looked at each other helplessly, and then sort of fell against each other, putting their hands together again on the table. “It’s very new. But it’s a miracle, as far as I’m concerned,” Mark said.

Bull, very somberly, gazing into Mark’s eyes, added, “You’re MY miracle, Mark. Everyone here is for what you’ve all done for me. My Christmas miracle.”

My heart caught. Jesse’s breath stopped next to me, and he threw his arm around me and pulled me to him, pulling Audrey in on the other side. “Thank God for miracles,” I choked out and held my water glass up.


I hope you've enjoyed revisiting these two old friends as much as I did updating their story. The world is full of negatives right now, but we must always remember that it is also full of good people and hope, even when it sometimes seems to be otherwise. As always, I love to hear from readers, both through comments and via email - [email protected] - or even just through votes. From both my husband and me, we hope you all have a very happy holiday and good things in the new year. 

by BillyC

Email: [email protected]

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