Something Real

Oliver James Whelan

Oliver came out of his room to the noise of a video game with the voices of several boys uttering encouragement. He looked across the hall and saw Daniel, his younger brother with three of his friends, two of which were working the consoles of the video game. Daniel lay across his bed, with two others sitting on it and a third down on the floor leaned back against it. None of them noticed him, and he didn’t interrupt. In the kitchen his father was pouring a soda and in the family room his mother was reading a paperback, no doubt a romance novel. The little mass paperbacks were all over the house, wherever she finished one, it would lay there until she thought to pick it up.

“I’m going for a hike,” said Oliver, as he made his way into the mudroom where his backpack and hiking shoes resided.

“Be back by five. Allison and Rick will be here for dinner,” said his mother.

“I remember.” Oliver knew his oldest sister and husband were coming over and he also knew it was to ask their parents to help with getting a loan for a home. He didn’t know why Allison was making such a big deal of asking, for they all knew their parents would do anything for them. Lindsey was at App State, and he was at UNC, and in two years, Daniel would no doubt be going away to college. Only Allison had not gone to college, instead she had taken a job in Asheville and soon after married Rick. The tuitions were beyond the means of their parents but with good grades each of them had gotten scholarships to help with the costs, but their parents were able to help with living cost at each university.

Shoes on and backpack in hand, Oliver went out the garage, down the drive and headed for the trailhead that tied their neighborhood to the hiking trials in the area.

 

After about half a mile, Oliver felt himself relax and fall into the rhythm of his natural stride as he followed the trail down to a stream, then back up the opposite side. He followed switchbacks until at the next ridge and he could see over the valleys on each side. There was something about being under the canopy of the trees. How it made him feel relaxed. In college, whenever he had been freaking out about an exam, or worse, unpleasant results of an exam, he had taken off for the nearby state park to hike through the woodland. As much as it relaxed him, it was never as satisfying as the trails of the mountains.

Oliver didn’t know why a mountain trail should be more satisfying, but he believed it was the effort it took to hike one of them. The climb up. The exertion of it. Yes, there were downhill runs, and those could be worse on the ankles, sometimes even the chins burned from the exertion, but the thing was, the downhill run always led to another uphill climb. One invariably led to the next.

He came to the first fork, one that led back, circling a housing development, and the other that came out on Darius Ridge Road, an old gravel road that led to property of a hunting club and past a couple of home sites, one of which dated back to the early 1900s. From there, a short hike up the mountain, he would come to a trail that skirted the south side of the hunting property, winding to east until it came back to the Point Lookout Trail, where he could circle back home.

There was no hesitation at the fork, veering to the right and taking the trail toward Darius Ridge Road, the longer route.

The trail followed the contours of the mountain for a long way, then it dropped down to the creek following its narrow path allowing Oliver to hear the rustling waters over the rock. It was calming, some ancient relationship of man and his natural surroundings. The woodlands were not quiet, not to Oliver. There was bird song, so many different species of bird, each doing their own sound, he had to really listen to distinguish one from another. Then there was the rustling of the wind through the tree canopy and when near the streams, the sound of water trickling and falling around rock. No matter what may have been troubling him, a hike would diminish it, make it less important. This time, what troubled him was a sense of isolation. Despite being with his family, and having old high school friends in the area, he still felt alone. It was no secret he was gay, that coming out happening in high school, but it didn’t create a situation where he was able to meet other guys with ease. Asheville was close but it still felt like he was traveling to some other place to meet someone.

After nearly an hour he came to the road, a gravel road that showed little traffic. He moved out to a wheel rut and started hiking along the road picking up his pace. The road rose along the side of the mountain and with his faster gait, he began to breath harder, drawing in each breath deeply, for his body hungered for more oxygen. The road straightened for a short distance, began to level off, following the contours of the mountain side, and he could see the top of the mountain over the trees where the road curved away.

Oliver was near the curve when he heard the approach of a vehicle behind him. He moved to the side of the road and looked back to see who would be coming up the road. It was apparent that it was small, some little economy car, maybe a Ford or a Toyota. As it neared, he saw the large driving lights mounted in front of the grille and thought it was just some local guy’s modifications to his little car. As it drew near, he saw the blue oval and knew it was a Ford, then recognized it as an older Escort, but the exact model he wasn’t sure for it looked different. The front end wasn’t like any remembered, then he realized the driver was on the right side, not the left.

The car slowed as it moved past him and the guy behind the wheel looked at him like he was someone trespassing. Someone in a place they were not supposed to be. Then it was past and soon disappearing around the curve.

Oliver wondered who would have brought a car from England to the states. Then he remembered the old Mayfield place was up ahead. The locals jokingly called it their English manor, their aristocrat’s place. He knew it had been built back in the early 1920’s as a vacation house for an English family, and some said it was a place to escape should Europe fall into another massive war. How often it had been used over the years, Oliver had no idea, but he knew in the years he could remember, he could only recall a couple of times any of the family had come to stay in the house.

Some of his classmates back in high school had ventured on the place one time, only to get run off by someone living there. They had told how the house looked run down, vines growing over some of the walls, and the slate roof green in places from moss growing on it.

Oliver had never dared to enter the property but as he hiked around the curve, he came to where the old stone wall delineated the Mayfield property, and just past the curve, the entry with its wrought iron gates standing open with weeds growing up around them. The place looked abandoned, except for the fresh tire track turning into the drive.

Oliver entered the drive and stood between the two large stone pillars that anchored the gates and looked at the tracks, eyes following them down the drive until it disappeared around a curve, blocked from view by the woods along the front of the property. He replayed the car passing him, the look of the driver, and how he wondered if the look was one that questioned his presence or was it one of curiosity. The surprise of seeing someone on their road, hiking on foot. He pictured the guy’s face, bringing up as much detail as he could, some lost to the shadows within the car.

The first thing Oliver remembered was the rosy cheeks and a face that could only be described as a baby face. Young looking, smooth skin and soft features. It was too dark within the car to see the eye color, but he pictured them being green or hazel, or maybe blue, like his own. Then he remembered the messy hair, how it looked as if the guy had run a hand through it over and over. He pictured it as brown, but remember when the sunlight struck the side of the guy’s head, and the reflection was tinted red.

Standing in the drive between the gate pillars, Oliver suddenly felt foolish, desperate even, for he was thinking of the guy in physical terms that led to his sizing him up, making a judgement to his attractiveness. He had been home only two weeks, and he was beginning to feel a desire for someone, that itch for sex, some connection with another guy. On campus he had had his flings, the hookups, even Marcus down the hall had been in his bed, and last fall there had been Jason, someone he had thought might be the one, until Jason broke it off, saying they should date other people. It seemed the guys he met were always looking for someone else, the next big fling or sexual conquest. And he had to admit, he had done it too. He was young, a Junior in college, with his whole life before him, so why should he settle down with one person. Why not play the field as Taylor had stated. Why not, he wondered again. He knew some part of him liked meeting new guys, discovering their personalities, then discovering what drove them sexually. Those who wanted to be on bottom or those that wanted to be on top, then those that liked to switch positions, to enjoy all aspects of sex between men. Then there were those with fetishes. Marcus who liked to wrestle around until sweating, then the rough stripping of each other, then the rough sexual play. Brian, the art major, who liked to be tied up, and Paul, the English major, who came across as stuffy, aloof, but when in bed, wanted to be choked while being fucked. Oliver didn’t begin to try to understand them. He simply accepted each one’s desires and tried to play his role, and along the way find the things that aroused him the most. Although Paul’s fetish did frighten him, the way Paul had begged him to squeeze tighter.

What he found he liked the most was the intimacy of sex, the slow reveal of another’s body, the touching and caressing of the skin, the kissing, especially the kissing. Then there was the sex, the slow penetration of his body, the undulating of one against the other, the heat of it, how it made them sweat and gasp for breath. Guys who fucked to cum frustrated him, and those with the more extreme fetishes either confused him or frightened him out of his comfort zone.

It was why he thought Jason could be the one. Jason was never rushed in their sex. Never one to roughly strip him of his clothes, or push for penetration as quickly as possible, only to cum far too quick. He loved the slow fuck, the switching of positions to bring new pleasure during each time. They had spent nearly all day in bed some Saturdays or Sundays when it was cold and rainy, at times fucking, then other times just laying side by side, touching, kissing, or talking quietly about nothing of importance.

Looking down the drive, Oliver was making himself feel that initial arousal, the stirrings of his sexual desires, and he realized he was thinking of the guy in the Escort with the right-hand drive. He looked back, left then right, seeing the road was still clear of other traffic. He looked back up the drive, eyes following the tracks until they and the drive disappeared from sight. He was curious, about the guy, and the old Mayfield house that he knew was somewhere around that curve. He started walking, tentatively at first, then faster, determined to see this place for himself.

 

Benjamin Rhys Fletcher 

Benjamin pulled up in front of the old house. He looked at it as if it were some family member he had not known existed but turned up one day to announce they were kin. It was a massive house, over nine hundred square meters, built of local granite, giving it a gray color, one stained and faded from the decades of wet seasons, acid rain from the west, and lack of upkeep. Not one member of the Mayfield family wanting to take on the responsibility. The vast fortune of their ancestors of the late 1800s and early 1900s had been divided too often, split up between future generations until they were just comfortably wealthy, able to maintain appearances, but none having the wealth to spend on some manor house in the states. Some pushed to sell the place, had since the 1960s. But there was some who still visited to hunt on the mountain property or to spend some time away from the family and their responsibilities within the family businesses.

Benjamin sat in the car, one that had been shipped over by an uncle a few years ago, staring up at the front of the house. Ivy grew over the entry façade, roots digging into the mortar joints, weakening them. He knew it was foolish to let ivy grow up a wall, but the look was considered so English, an old family such as his own, believed it was a required fenestration.

Climbing out of the Escort, Benjamin went to the front door, a massive thing, nearly one and a half meters wide and at least three meters high, and he pushed it open and entered the foyer. He had been in the house two days, and it still felt alien to him. A place he couldn’t make an association. He stood in the foyer, it two stories high and half the depth of the house, the room had no intimacy, nothing inviting about it. Even the marble floor looked and felt cold. He looked left into the formal dining room, the table and chairs all under white sheets, then he looked right into the formal living room at more sheets covering its furniture. Double doors were on the opposite wall leading to the one room that he felt drawn to. It was the library, a room the remaining staff struggled to keep clean. The shelves were open, none with glass doors like in the library in his grandparent’s house in Windsor. He pictured the room. The wood flooring, the wood and plaster ceiling, and the wood shelving packed with books. At French doors leading to a terrace, sat a massive wood desk and between the desk and double doors from the living room, two sofas creating a seating area. Along the two side walls, except where a door or window was positioned, the bookshelves lined every remaining inch of them. The room seemed to smell of old cigars, paper, and the musty smell of a room not used in a very long time.

Benjamin moved down the foyer to the back of the house to the most modern room within it. The large family room with a billiard table on one side and a large seating area on the other facing a massive fireplace. But even this room felt old, for the television was old, a large thing within a wood cabinet that sat to one side of the fireplace. With the bad reception and no cable ever run to the house, Benjamin could see why no one bothered to update it to a new flat screen.

He sat on the sofa that let him look out the large windows, over the open grass slope below the house, to the trees beyond, and beyond them, the mountains.

A clock was ticking off the time, a limb tapped at one of the windows when the wind picked up, then a noise from the kitchen. A pan or bowl dropped, ringing out, disrupting the silence. The maid was cleaning, a chore she did every day, room by room, trying to keep the house presentable for when a family member finally decided to come for a stay. Somewhere outside, was the ground’s keeper, a man who looked to be in his seventies. It was obvious the grounds were too much for him. Benjamin had watched him from his bedroom window the day before, moving at a slow steady pace while trimming the hedges around the parking court and garage. Sometime later, he had looked out again and saw the hedges were trimmed and the man had moved on to some other chore.

Benjamin looked at the mountains wondering why he had come to the states. He replayed the week before, home from his sophomore year of college where he found himself feeling restless, made worse by his father pushing once again for him to change his major, to position himself to come into the family business. He didn’t understand why his father pushed him so. He had two older brothers, one a senior in college and the other working in the corporate offices. Charles and Reeves wanted to follow in their father’s footsteps. Wanted to be seen as businessmen, successful in the family’s businesses. Men respected in the community, men who could give favors and expect favors in return. But their father wasn’t satisfied, pushing him to join them. It had eventually led to the argument. The one that made his father show an anger he had never seen before, then a sadness he didn’t think his father capable.

 

Benjamin Rhys, you must change majors. It will not do for you to waste your college on a literature major. It simply does not help you when you come to work…

 I’m not working in the family’s businesses. I don’t want it. Why do you push this so?

 It’s important that all my sons are-

 Are you only concerned by how it’ll make you look? Seriously, is that all-

 Benjamin!

 Father! Let’s not do this.

 Do WHAT? Look after your future, our family’s future. What is so wrong with that? Answer me!

 I can look after my own future.

 NO, you cannot, obviously, wasting your time on just reading old books. You need-

 No, father. You have Charles and Reeves. Isn’t that enough?

 Benjamin…I’m not trying to hurt you. I want what is best for you, and for the family. The business needs you too.

 Why?

 Son, you’re more capable than either Charles or Reeves. I can see it. You could be the one to run everything-

 I don’t want it. Why is that so hard to understand?

 But-

 

Benjamin could picture it, the moment when his grandmother came into the room. Graceful and quiet in her every movement. Neither of them had known she had arrived for a visit and neither knew how much she had overheard, but she came into the study, moving to the other armchair facing the desk and sat.

There were the formal greetings, inquiry into how she was doing, and Benjamin realized later how she played along, let her son, his father, have his formality. Then she shocked them both by suggesting he take some time away from the family, go the states to their house in the mountains of North Carolina. The time away would do them both good. And that was the end of it. Three days later, Benjamin flew out of Heathrow for Charlotte, North Carolina.

 

Upon arrival, he had felt like it had been a huge mistake. It was thirty minutes to Asheville, over an hour to Charlotte. He felt isolated. But he didn’t feel alone. It was a strange feeling, to be at the house away from everyone, away from family and friends. For the first time in a long time, he contemplated his own life, who he was as a person. An English lad, he sarcastically thought, scoffing aloud, then he considered it seriously. Someone from an old family that worried too much about appearances, about their history, or the parts of it they admitted, speaking far too often of tradition and heritage and distorted views of loyalty and responsibility.

He was nineteen, about to be twenty and come fall, a junior majoring in English Lit with a minor in philosophy. He had his mother’s reddish-brown hair, his father’s blue eyes, and a tall lanky build like his brother Charles, the two of them 183 cm, taller than Reeves and their father by nearly five cm. But unlike Charles, and Reeves too, he was gay. He had defiantly come out at fifteen, and by the time he was sixteen, his father had come to accept it, no longer trying to get him to be someone different. Some of the extended family tried to make an issue of it, but something happened between them and his grandmother, and the talk ended.

Through the last two years of grade school, there had been two boyfriends. The summer before college, a fling with a boy from in town, and in college, there had been a couple of serious dates and few hookups, but nothing so serious as to make him think of them as the one.

Last night, he had gone into Asheville and found a gay bar on the north side of downtown. At first, he had simply watched the guys from the far side of the room, nursing the soda he had been regulated due to his age. The banter between guys who obviously knew each other. The friendly jabs and jesting, the playing flirting, and between two of them, the possibility of leaving together. When he went for another soda at the bar, one then another spoke to him. The usual flirting, the compliments on his looks, and when he first replied to one of them, the questions of where he was from, and why was he in Asheville and how long would he be there.

The attention had been nice, Benjamin had to admit, this desire to know someone else, no matter how fleeting. He knew some were looking to hookup, hoped to take him back to their place, but he hadn’t felt it. The desire for sex hadn’t been there, not enough to make him act on it. He had simply wanted to be around other gay guys, to be reminded there were others out there.

Looking over the trees at the mountains, he wondered if he should have gone home with Luke or Nathan. Both were attractive and a bit older, more muscular, men he could have felt some comfort within their embrace. Maybe he would go back tonight and give in to his sexual desires.

Stirred by his daydreaming of the guys from the bar, he climbed to his feet and went to the library.

It was the most comfortable room in the house, one he had spent the most time. He strolled along the shelves on the right wall, at times dragging his index finger over the spines of the books, while capturing the titles of a few. At the desk, he sat in the high back leather chair and swiveled to face the terrace on the side of the house. The empty urns that no doubt held plants at one time, the pavers that were cracked, and in one corner heaving upward. Compared to the houses back in England, this house was practically a new home, but neglect had made it feel older. If he had not known when it was built, he could have just as easily thought early 1800s, maybe even older. Back on his feet, he moved back to shelves, wondering if he should tackle one of the books, he had taken note. Benjamin Disraeli’s Sybil, Robert Louis Stevenson’s Kidnapped, or maybe he would finally read that American novelist, Mark Twain. A copy of The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn had been on one shelf. He moved along the shelves, seeing if another novel stood out to him. When he came to the first window along the wall, he looked out across the open front lawn. He stood still, looking at the different view from the house, one where the tree line wasn’t as far from the house, the open lawn smaller, and thus less of the mountains visible. His eyes naturally followed the graceful s-curve of the drive as it followed the slope down, then swung right, disappearing into the trees. He tried to picture what it would have been like when the house had been first built. Cars of the early twenties motoring up the drive. Would it have been an American car, like a Cadillac or Duesenberg, or maybe it would have been a Rolls-Royce, shipped over from England.

Then he saw movement, something coming out of the trees along the drive. He straightened up and watched as the guy from the road came into view. He knew it was him, for he could see the light tan cap and dark blue backpack.

On the road, while passing the guy, he had sized him up with the prejudice of being a local or a tourist. He had looked average or slightly less than average in height, with dirty blonde hair visible around the cap. A thin, lanky build and a face that showed more maturity than he had expected at first. A shadow of a dark blonde beard along the jaw and chin. And he knew the eyes had to be blue or something similar for the way they seemed to glow within the shadow of the cap’s bill. Yes, the guy had been attractive, but he had been a hiker, coming out from one trail and heading to the next. Someone who could be from anywhere. Someone he would never see again, so someone to admire for their physical appearance, then forget. But he couldn’t forget them if they were coming up the drive. He stood at the window watching the slow progress along the drive, knowing the guy could not see him with the bright sun overhead and he inside in the dark room. He watched the guy stop and look up at the house. Time and time again, he thought the guy was going to turn around and head back to the road, and each time the guy defied him, continuing up the drive.

Benjamin wondered if the guy would follow the drive all the way up to the front door.

He watched him, the slow stroll further up the drive, then the long pause, once, twice, then three times, the last only halfway up the drive along the open lawn area. He waited for the guy to continue, to come closer. He watched the turn of the head obviously surveying the house. He stepped back from the window, hoping it was far enough not to be seen, as he watched. The head turning left to right, the looking toward his Escort, then over to the right where the drive went around to the garage.

Benjamin became worried the guy was going to turn around and head back to the road. To get this far up the drive, then give up to his way of thinking, and go back to the trails. He rushed to the living room, cutting though the covered furniture, to the foyer. He unlocked the front door and swung the massive thing open. Sunlight poured into the foyer, bathing him in its warmth and temporarily blinding him. He stepped into the light, squinting to see. Across the threshold, to the wide stoop, then down the four steps to the gravel parking court. Gravel crunched under foot as his he looked over the little white Escort, down the front yard, to the lone figure heading back toward the road.

“Can I help you?” Benjamin called out.

The guy stopped and turned. At first it seemed he didn’t know where the voice came from, then he looked straight up toward the Escort, the entry of the house, and toward Benjamin. A few steps and Benjamin stood by the car at the front fender.

“Is there something you’re looking for?” Benjamin called out.

“No,” the guy replied, then after a long pause, “I was just curious what your house looked like. I had heard about it but never seen it. I’m sorry if I’m trespassing. I’ll be on my way.”

Benjamin saw the guy turn and start walking.

“It’s okay,” Benjamin called out, then in a low voice only he could hear, “you don’t have to go.”

The guy looked back once, waved, then headed down the drive. He walked at a brisk pace and far too soon for Benjamin, was slipping through the trees and out of sight.

A Late Lunch

Oliver woke late on Saturday morning, grabbed a bowl of cereal, then went outside to lay in the hammock, rocking gently in the breeze while reading. Now that it was summer, he could indulge with the books he wanted to read. He had a list, from current releases, Sci-Fi series, to books about being gay. The latter had been something he wanted to read in high school but had been too afraid to be seen with one of the books. But he made lists, noted older books with numerous recommendations to newer releases that won critical praise from the critics. He had gone to the library in Asheville and found one such book, one published back in 1956: Giovanni’s Room by James Baldwin.

He read through the first chapter, then the second, trying to picture the scenes created. An American in France, of meeting the older Jacques, then at a bar, meeting Giovanni.

“Oliver, can you run an errand for me?” his mother called out from the rear porch.

“Yes,” Oliver replied, marking his spot and swinging his legs to the ground.

“We’re out of laundry detergent and I want you to pick up some sugar. I want to bake cookies tomorrow and I’m afraid I won’t have enough.”

“Sure thing. I might ride into Asheville for lunch then pick up everything on the way back.”

“That’s fine, just don’t forget.”

 

Oliver sped up as he motored down the on ramp to get on I-40, heading west toward Asheville. It was a short drive, one that took only a few minutes. When he came to I-240, he merged off onto it and headed north, circling around the downtown until on the north side where he pulled off. He drove into town, making his way to Haywood Street, then a quick left on Battery Park Avenue. He circled the Grove Arcade until finding a parking space. It was twenty after one, and the sidewalks were busy with locals and tourists out shopping and getting lunch.

Oliver locked his car and started down the sidewalk. Over on Haywood was a used bookstore and two blocks further east, one more, and he would make them a destination. A place to go, where he would browse the used books, feeling like he was somewhere the adventures and a life he was not privy were laid out for the entertainment of others. He would circle back going to the one in the Grove Arcade, or maybe he would grab lunch first, then roam the arcade.

Just before the intersection where Page intersected Battery Park, in next to the last parallel parking space, sat the Escort from the Mayfield Manor.

It was the driving lights on the front bumper he noticed first, then the steering wheel on the right, on the side against the sidewalk. He wondered what it was like to drive seated on the wrong side. It was solid white except for a blue stripe low on the side between the wheels. The stripe started as a thin line and a wide line, but at the rear wheel, only the thin line hit the flare of the rear wheel arch. The wide line faded out by the end of the front door. He stood by the car, wondering why, what was essentially an economy car, captured his eye so. He stepped closer and looked inside at the interior. A book lay on the passenger seat, otherwise nothing laid out that spoke to the guy who drove it.

“You’re the hiker?”

The voice was behind him, and Oliver turned to see the driver with two large books in one hand and a small bag in the other.

“I was just looking,” Oliver stammered.

“Relax. People look in this car all the time. Something about the steering wheel being on the right, I assume. Are you from this area?”

“Near Black Mountain. You live in that house?”

“No, just getting away. I’m supposed to think about my sins and go back and do the right thing,” the guy replied, exaggerating his British accent.

“Excuse me?” Oliver replied, confused as to what the guy meant.

“The family has expectations, and they do not align with my goals in life.” The reply was dripping with sarcasm. “I’m Benjamin.”

“Oliver.”

“Like Oliver Twist.”

“I doubt that,” Oliver replied.

Benjamin laughed, then stepped around Oliver, unlocked the driver’s door, and leaned into the car placing the books and bag on the passenger seat. Oliver felt like he should move on, not bother Benjamin further, and he took a couple of steps back, ready to utter some salutation in departure. Benjamin stepped back from the car, closing the door.

“Hey, is there a chance you’ve not had lunch,” said Benjamin.

“Huh…oh, no not yet. I was going to browse around and grab something somewhere.”

“There’s a little place down on that narrow street-“

“Wall Street.”

“I think that was the name of it. I would love it if you would join me. You can tell me what there is to do around here.”

Oliver looked at Benjamin, sized him up, feeling an attraction to him. The British accent, the tall lean body. Benjamin had to be six foot tall, if not taller. And there were the rosy cheeks, the reddish tint to the hair, and the blue eyes, a blue more vivid than his own.

“Sure.”

Oliver fell in beside Benjamin as they made their way across Battery Park then down a pedestrian alley until they came out on Wall Street. It was narrow, barely wide enough for two cars to pass, and they strolled past the curve, and to the restaurant Oliver had in mind.

The hostess told them it would be a short wait, so they stepped to the side out of the way.

“What you said earlier, about why you are here. What did you mean?” asked Oliver.

“My father wants me to go into the family business and I have other plans.”

“Are you the only one, I mean, are you an only child?”

“What you’re asking is why does my father need me if my oldest brother is already in the company and the middle one is set to do so after college. Why does he need all three of us?”

“You have two brothers?”

“Charles and Reeves. Reeves is our father made over. The same short, stockier build, the same temperament and even many of the same mannerism. And the ego…

“Charles is more like mom, and we share the Atkinson genes for being taller and skinny. He would be better for the company, but I’m afraid he isn’t cunning enough to out do Reeves. Reeves is cunning, but unlike our father, not nearly as smart or shrewd.”

“So, your father wants you.”

“Something like that, but what he forgets is there are three first cousins who are just as willing and just as smart. Although father’s pride will stand in the way of letting Aunt Charlotte or Aunt Haley’s children take over. I hope Eva gets the big office. She’s smart and caring and not as manipulative as Reeves.”

“What do you want?”

“What do I want? I want a nice teaching position at a college, teaching literature, a nice little place with a garden shack that I can make into a writer’s shed.”

“You want to be a writer.”

“Yes, but I want to teach too. I guess that sounds foolish.”

“No, not at all.”

“What about you? What do you…I mean…are you in college, or still in high school, or-“

“I’m at UNC. University of North Carolina. I’m in the environmental sciences.”

“What is your goal?”

“Work to protect our woodlands. Right now, I’ve got so many avenues I could go, but I hope as I go through the program, I can narrow it down.”
“Why that program?”

“I like the outdoors. I find it relaxing, a way to calm myself when something is bothering me, and there are reasons for that, physical, scientific reasons, and I want to explore it, to educate people to it, and work to protect it.”

Oliver suddenly realized he just told a stranger, someone he had just met, more about his goal in life than anyone else.

“When you were hiking, was it to calm yourself?”

“No. I was just bored and wanted out of the house,” Oliver replied, smiling at the overly simplistic reason.

“Your table is ready,” said the hostess as she approached them. “Follow me.”

 

All through lunch, they talked about their lives. The mundane aspects, describing their families, what it was like for each of them growing up, doing the natural comparisons. Once finished, plates removed and drinks refilled one more time, Benjamin sat back, and Oliver felt the stare as much as he saw it.

“Can I ask you something?”

Oliver had no idea what Benjamin would ask but seeking permission to do so made him feel a bit anxious. But he smiled and looked across the table.

“Yes.”

“Are you gay? I am and I was just wondering if you were too, or if I was just projecting.”

Oliver had not been shy about admitting it since arriving on the campus at UNC, but there were times when at home he still hesitated. Those moments when he felt like the thirteen-year-old kid trying to figure out why he was different, then the fourteen and fifteen-year-old watching his classmates flirt with each other, start to date, going through the experimentation of their sexual attractions, while he just silently looked at Owen or Bobby or Steve, or Justin, sixteen years old with his own wheels that lived down the street. He finally came out to his parents, and not in the manner he had been planning in his head for nearly two years. His mother kept trying to get him to ask Kathy Howard out. She was attractive and smart and as outgoing as he, loving to hike the trails around the region. In every metric, she was perfect for him, except for one. He wasn’t sexually attracted to her, and after his mother had pushed it one time too many, he let his frustration overwhelm him.

 

Why won’t you ask her out? She loves to hike and would-

I just don’t want to.

That doesn’t make sense.

Why not?

Don’t you like her? She’s attractive and-

But I like boys…I like boys.

What?

I’m gay…okay? Does that disappoint you?

What? No, but…I’m just surprised is all.

 

But then he knew it was okay. He grinned, then chuckled, nodding his head. “Yes, I’m gay.”

Benjamin grinned in return, sat up, leaning forward.

“You want to come back to the house?”

It was sudden, this invite, but at the same time, he never wanted to go with another as much as he did at this moment. But he needed to pick up the things his mother needed and get home before too late.

“I’d like that, but I have to pick up some stuff for mom and be back by five or so.”

“I see. How about tomorrow? You free tomorrow?”

“Tomorrow is good.”

“Why don’t you come over for lunch and we can hang out or maybe I’ll let you show me that trail you like to hike.”
“Sounds good.”’

Oliver watched Benjamin motion the waiter for the check, and as the waiter set the black plastic tray with check on it on the table, Benjamin quickly reached for it.

“I’ve got this.”

“I can pay for-“

“I got it,” Benjamin cut him off, his tone playful and admonishing at the same time.

 

On the sidewalk they hesitated to which direction to head. Back toward their cars or maybe go the other way and stroll around.

“You don’t have to head off right this minute, do you?” asked Benjamin.

“No, I don’t need to take off for a couple of hours. I was going to browse the bookstores while here, but I assume you’ve hit them already.”

“Just that rare books place. You want to show me where the others are located?”

“Sure. Let’s go this way first,” Oliver replied, pointing up Wall Street where it curved up and intersected with Battery Park.

Lunch at the Mayfield Manor 

Benjamin had set up late reading through the books he had found in Asheville. He woke up in bed with two books laid out beside him and the morning sun shining brightly through the window. He showered and dressed, cargo shorts and shirt, then headed down to the kitchen to make coffee. He had picked up what he needed for lunch on the way back from Asheville. Hamburger meat, buns, and lettuce, onion, a tomato, and all the condiments, not sure which Oliver would prefer. There was also a bag of chips and soda, and a small cheesecake for dessert.

At the back door, a small grill still in its box, a bag of charcoal, and lighter fluid. There was a gas grill in the garage, but it was so old he didn’t know if it worked or if the tank had any fuel.

He carried the grill out to the terrace and pulled it out of the box to see what tools he needed to assembly it. There was a large toolbox in the garage, a rolling unit like in a mechanics shop, so he hoped it wasn’t for show and had what he needed, or there would be quick trip to a hardware store.

He crossed the gravel parking court between the house and garage, entering through the side door. With lights flipped on, he surveyed the garage again, like he had done the first day at the house. The Escort sat in the first bay, a car one of his uncles had brought over once it was twenty-five years old and could be imported. Next to it sat a Jeep Grand Wagoneer, one of the old models and a surprise to see in the family’s garage. He would expect a Range Rover, but maybe whoever bought it thought it would blend in better with the locals. It wouldn’t start and he found the reason to be the battery had been removed. The next bay was empty, just oil-stained concrete and tracks. He knew there once had been a Jaguar and remembered how Aunt Charlotte complained of its reliability. He didn’t know what happened to it but assumed it got sold just to be rid of it. In the last bay sat a Rover SD1. He had seen them around Britain, and admired the shape of the car, with its wedge profile. But he knew the problems with the car, how it came out when the car industry was suffering. The silver car was a later model, supposedly one with most of the gremlins worked out of it. But this one also needed a battery put in it, and he wasn’t curious enough about it to spend the money for a battery.

In the back of the garage, in front of the Escort sat the red toolbox. It took only a few seconds to find what he needed, everything in the top two drawers.

 

He put the grill together, built a fire in it to burn out the interior surface, then went back inside to get the hamburger seasoned and made into patties. There was something soothing about the process, the preparation of everything for a meal. It seemed like a lost opportunity to always depend on staff to cook every meal. Or maybe it was because he was preparing a meal for a boy.

Right on time, he saw Oliver’s black Civic pull around and park near the garage. He stood at the window watching as Oliver climbed out of the car, straightened his shirt, then walked toward the house. As Oliver came to the steps leading up to the terrace, he finally pulled away from the window to go meet him at the door.

“Hey, you made it.”

“Hey,” Oliver replied, and Benjamin heard that shyness Oliver had displayed the day before on occasion.

“Come on in.”

Benjamin led Oliver into the kitchen, and he saw how Oliver surveyed his surroundings. Few people had been in the house, so he realized there had to be a lot of speculation about the place. The innate curiosity of people about a place owned by some family from the UK.

“How about I pour you a drink, then give you a tour of the old place.”

“I’d like to see what this place is like.”

 

Benjamin led Oliver into the family room seeing how it must look with its old television and worn leather furniture. Then he led him though the dining room, across the foyer, through the living room to the double doors of the library.

“My favorite room of the house,” Benjamin announced as he pushed the two doors inward revealing the library to Oliver.

“Wow, this is…great.”

“We can be stuffy as fuck, but we do know how to create a library.”

Oliver roamed around the perimeter of the room, looking that the books. Near the desk, he stopped, slipping a volume from a shelf.

“It’s a first edition,” Oliver said in surprise.

“There are a lot of first editions on these shelves, but sadly, I doubt most have ever been read.”

“Huh?”

“You know, it’s all about appearances for my family. They could sell this place, just get rid of everything in it, but these books. This is the part I’d want to save.”

“I could spend a lifetime in here,” Oliver whispered barely loud enough for Benjamin to hear.

“Well, come on, I’ll show you the two upper floors.”

Benjamin led Oliver up the main stair, and down one hall then another on the other side of the foyer. He showed Oliver one bedroom suite after the next, and in each one realized how it must look to see everything covered in white sheets. The old manor looked abandoned. Oliver gave no indication of doing so but he couldn’t help but see it himself.

“Come on up to the upper floor. I think the bedrooms are better.”

Benjamin led Oliver up a stair that was narrower and tucked between two bedrooms. At the top of the stair, they came into a hall that was half as wide as the one below, not wide enough of side tables and chairs.

“This floor is tucked under the roof, and the rooms are not as large,” said Benjamin, leading Oliver to a door at the end the hall, just past another narrow stair. “This is the room I’m staying in.”

The room was small, with the furniture feeling like it was crammed into it. The ceiling was broken up, its slopes matching the roof. A dormer window faced the rear yard, and on the end wall, a fireplace with a small window between it and the wall.

“This is nice. It has an intimacy the bigger bedrooms don’t have,” said Oliver as he moved to the window to look down.

“I think so too.”

Oliver turned, his eyes landing on the books stacked on one of the nightstands, then coming to stare back. Benjamin felt the stare. It made him feel breathless.

“Benjamin?”

“Yes, Oliver.”

“Doesn’t it feel kind of lonely. I mean, just you in this huge house.”

“I’ve only been here a few days and still in the exploration phase.”

“You’ve not been here before?”

“My family came when I was young, five if I remember correctly, and we’ve not been back since. Dad came a few times after that to hunt with my uncles and brothers. For the most part, I think my grandparents come the most, and Aunt Charlotte. She loves it here. I think she would move here if she didn’t have her obligations.”

“Obligations?”

“She is CEO of one of the family companies and of course, on the main board with voting rights.”

“I see,” Oliver replied, moving past the bed to the other window, the small casement that overlooked the narrow side yard and into the woods. “What about you?”

“What about me?”

“Could you live here…in the states?”

He moved to the foot of the bed, tempted to approach Oliver, but knowing to wait. He felt like he needed to take his time, not rush it for he didn’t want it to feel like just some hookup with a local boy. He didn’t know why, but something within wanted it to be different. Not like when he went to Greece or Italy, or some other country, partying with local boys, having his fun, then just as quickly, leaving them to go back home.

“Until I got here, I’ve never really considered it. But I’ve thought about it, tried to imagine what it would be like for me to live here. Right now, I can’t say. It’s an intriguing idea, one that seems to have something to offer.”

“I sometimes think I need to leave in order to find any kind of happiness, but I don’t want to leave the mountains and its natural places. I’ve thought of the Rockies, you know go west, to have the adventure of a place that is different, then I think I could just move north, someplace where there is a more urban life but one close to the mountains.”

“Have a place with a gay community and your natural areas too?”

“Yeah.”

“Is it hard to meet guys? I mean, living in a place like this?”

“Sometimes. Being at Chapel Hill, on campus, it is so different.”

Benjamin saw the torn expression, a need for another butting against the desire for living in some isolated natural place. He wanted to say something about Oliver just needed to find someone who shared his love of nature then he could have both. But he couldn’t suggest it, not yet. It felt selfish not to do so, and it confused him about his own feelings.

“How about we go back downstairs and get that grill fired up. I’ve got the ultimate American meal prepared.”

“And what is that?”

“Hamburgers.”

Oliver laughed, good naturedly, and it was so nice to see, Benjamin considered it enduring.

The Little Bedroom on the Top Floor. 

Oliver stood next to Benjamin, helping him wash the few dishes and utensils they had used. It made him really sense the physical nature of Benjamin. The three or so inches in height over his own, the longer arms, covered in suds up to mid forearm, and how he seemed to move so little. Every gesture or movement done with the least amount of effort. No flourishes or exaggerated movements. It added to his presence, made Benjamin seem more substantial.

“I’m glad you came over,” Benjamin whispered in a low voice, and for the first time, Oliver heard some insecurity in his tone.

“I’m glad you asked me.”

“When we finish, do you want to take a short hike? You can show me one of the trails.”

“Okay. We can go up the one just above your drive. It goes to this creek that has a small waterfall on it, just a few feet high, but it drops into a small pool of water that looks like something from a fairy tale.”

“Sounds nice.”

“I think so.”

 

It took nearly an hour of steady hiking to get to the stream. Oliver came to the small rise that overlooked the waterfall and pool and waited for Benjamin to step up beside him. He wanted to see his expression after first laying eyes on the scene below. The trickling sound of water and bird song gave the place a sense of removal from the blusterous world man had created. No roar of traffic, or the constant drone of a television, or radio, or just crowds of people, until everything was a white noise of sound.

Benjamin stepped next to him and surveyed this place Oliver found so comforting. The small creek working its way down the side of the mountain, cascading over and around rocks that lined its bed. At the drop, a large flat rock that let water shed over it and fall into a pool of water. Not more than ten feet wide and no more than sixteen feet long, it was a small thing, nothing that would show up on any map or survey of the land. But the waters were crystal clear, and the bottom lined with small rock and sand. Its banks were stone with moss covering all of them and ferns and plants grew up in their cracks. On the opposite bank, a ground cover with small white flowers.

“Beautiful…it does look like something from a fairy tale,” Benjamin uttered, quietly, almost a whisper.

They moved down to the pool, to one rock large and flat enough for the two of them to sit upon. Oliver pulled his shoes and socks off and slowly submerged his feet into the cold waters.

“Is it cold?” asked Benjamin.

“Yes, but it feels good after hiking.”

Benjamin slipped off his hiking shoes and socks, then slid forward and eased his feet into the water.

“It is colder than I expected.”

 

The sun moved overhead, slowly, barely noticeable at first, but far too soon, it was dropping in the western sky.

Oliver and Benjamin sat on the rock, waded around in the pool, and looked for the wildlife that lived in the waters. Benjamin swore he saw a crayfish, and Oliver found a snail sliding along a rock right at the water’s edge. Oliver knew they needed to head back, and he reached over for Benjamin’s shoes and set them next to him.

“We need to get going.”

“Okay.”

Oliver, in some defiance on putting on his shoes right away, stood back in the pool and waded across.

“What are you doing?” Benjamin asked jokingly.

“Just making one more lap around before putting on my shoes.”

Oliver turned to wade back across, and he stepped wrong, putting his foot on a rock that angled upward too sharply. He slipped, lost his balance, and went backwards, splashing down into the pool. Once at rest, he was sitting in water over his stomach with water dripping from his face. He looked at Benjamin with surprise for how quickly it had happened. Benjamin laughed, then Oliver, realizing how silly he had to look falling, and now just sitting in the pool.

“You okay?” Benjamin finally asked.

“Just my pride for being clumsy.”

“Need help getting up?”

“No, no need for both of us to get wet,” Oliver replied, gently climbing to his feet.

 

Benjamin led Oliver into the mudroom. Oliver’s clothes were nearly dry, but he still had dirt smeared on his arms and legs and had commented on how his underwear was still damp and irritating.

“Come on up to my room and I’ll get you clean clothes to put on,” said Benjamin.

“I can’t wear you stuff.”

“I think you can,” Benjamin replied as he led Oliver to the back stair. At the third floor, he went to his room and pulled out a pair of shorts and a t-shirt. “Get a shower and put this on, and I’ll throw your stuff in the washer.”

“Okay,” Oliver replied, taking the offered clothing, then heading toward the hall.

“Where are you going?”

“To one of the bathrooms to shower.”

“Use mine. It has soap and shampoo, and there are towels in the closet.”

Oliver went into the bathroom and Benjamin headed back down to the first floor to the laundry room at the back of the house.

 

Back in his room, Benjamin saw the bathroom door was cracked open. It was too much of a temptation, and he eased up to the door and looked through the gap. He could only see the lavatory and the mirror over it, but in the reflection, obscured by some fogging up of the glass, he could see Oliver in the shower. The lean body under the spray, then moving back from underneath to soap up. White suds cascaded down the back, over the ass, and down the legs. He pushed the door open a bit further.

“Oliver?”

“Yeah?”

“Can I get in the shower with you?”

 

Benjamin moved into the bathroom and removed his clothes; knowing Oliver was watching. Every move, the slipping of buttons free, the tug of a zipper, and the pulling of each limb free, he saw Oliver’s stare. Turned toward him, he also saw Oliver. Fully, head to toe, nothing hidden from view.

The lean body, wet skin glistening in the light, tempted him. He looked with longing as he stepped out of his boxers. He looked at the hardening cock, then up until staring into the blue eyes. As he neared the glass door, Oliver slid it open. He stepped in, cupped the back of Oliver’s neck, and kissed him.

Hands moved down his sides, around his waist, and hugged their bodies together. He kissed the lips passionately, his desire greater than he had imagined. He moved along the jaw, feeling the rough stubble. Masculine in nature. Oliver gasped as he kissed until at the neck. He nipped at the ear, tugged on the lobe, then held his lips near it.

“You won’t stop me, will you?” Breathless, barely a whisper.

“No,” Oliver replied. An exhale of sound, filled with desperation and longing.

Benjamin slid his hands down Oliver’s arms until holding the wrist. He guided Oliver to the back wall, putting each hand on it. He kissed the back of the neck while rubbing up the arms, down the sides until holding the waist. He pulled back, guiding Oliver to step back, angling hips back while going to his knees. He kissed each cheek, raked his nose up the crevice between them. Then he dragged his tongue upward, along the crevice, then back down. Oliver moaned. He worked his tongue over the tight opening. Oliver shuddered and pushed back against his tongue.

Kissing upward over the cheeks to the lower back, Benjamin slipped fingers of one hand between the cheeks while manipulating his own cock with the other. One finger, then two, he rubbed the tight opening, then penetrated it. He pushed inward as far as he could, working the fingers inside Oliver until he felt him loosen.

“Benjamin…please…”

Benjamin rose to his feet, rubbed his hard cock over the cheeks, then down between them. Oliver pushed back, more so when he rubbed over the opening. He put his cock to it and pushed.

Oliver moaned and shivered, as Benjamin eased inch after inch into him. He pushed until halfway inside Oliver, then he slowly began to fuck. A tug outward, then the push inward, over and over, building up his pace. He held the narrow waist while driving his cock inward until hips pressed against ass.

Reaching around, Benjamin took Oliver in hand. He felt the hardness of the shaft, then the flared spongy head. He rubbed it making Oliver shudder, then stroked the cock increasing Oliver’s arousal as he fucked him.

Far too aroused, neither could hold back. Oliver shuddered, jammed his ass back on Benjamin’s cock, the cried out. Benjamin felt Oliver swell in his fist, then flex with each ejaculation. Oliver’s entire body shuddered with every ejaculation, and it pushed Benjamin over the edge. He pushed inward, all the way, and came.

It was Different

Oliver didn’t know why, but if felt different with Benjamin. Every touch had sent shivers down his spine. Even now, Benjamin laid back on his bed, he lying next to him, it was true. He felt the warmth of Benjamin’s body against his own. It kept him aroused, and by the half erection Benjamin had it was true of him too. He ran a finger over Benjamin’s cock, rubbed up the shaft until toying with the head. It flared with is manipulation.

“If you don’t stop…” Benjamin uttered.

“What will you do, if I don’t?” Oliver replied as he took Benjamin in hand stroking him to full erection. “Will you fuck me again?”

Oliver looked at Benjamin’s cock, feeling his desire for it. He slid down the bed, rotating around until he was laying next to the hips. He held the cock up and leaned to it.

“Fuck…suck me,” Benjamin uttered.

Oliver tongued the cock, then put his lips to the head and pushed down. The cock slipped between his lips, over his tongue, and to the back of his throat. He worked his mouth up and down, then tongued the head, over and over, fast, slow, and at times he just held the head in his mouth.

Benjamin began to push upward. Little thrusts upward.

“Oliver…please…”

 

Oliver straddled the waist holding Benjamin’s cock upright. He moved down to it. He rocked his hips back and forth, rubbing the head, then he let it penetrate him. Down, slowly, letting it fill his hole. Down until seated on Benjamin, where he sat still savoring the fullness of the penetration.

When fingers dug into each thigh, Oliver sensed Benjamin’s desperation, and he began to move. Up, then down, slowly at first so he could sense every inch sliding through his opening. But it was too arousing, stroked his own arousal until his cock drooled its slick onto Benjamin’s stomach. He increased his pace, moved faster and faster, until his cock smacked wetly against it.

Stroking his own cock, Oliver rode Benjamin. At times so fast the exertion made his skin glisten with sweat, then he would slow until moving so slowly it was a torment for Benjamin.

Benjamin suddenly sat up, bearhugged him, and rolled the two of them over until he was on bottom.

Oliver knew it was where he belonged. He never felt his sexuality like he did when he could feel the weight of another guy on top of him while they fucked his ass. But with Benjamin there was something else about it. The feel of the hands holding his legs behind the knees, the folding him over until his thighs pressed against his chest, then the weight of Benjamin on top. The feel of the undulating body, the lips against the side of his face moving over his flush skin until pressing against his own lips, and finally there was the cock boring into his depths. Pushing inward until the fullness was almost unbearable.

“Fuck me…fuck me…” Oliver uttered as Benjamin’s pace increased.

The old bed squeaked, then rocked in rhythm with their fuck. It made the whole room seem a part of their copulation. Oliver could think of nothing but Benjamin.

“Why do you do this to me?” Benjamin uttered in a hoarse whisper.

Oliver clung to his undulating body.

“Benjamin,” Oliver whispered.

Benjamin shifted position once again, slide down beside him, twisting him at the waist. He felt the cock rub over his ass, center on his loosened opening, then sink into his depths. He took his own cock in hand, stroking up his own arousal as Benjamin fucked him. A slow steady fuck. A push inward, then the slow tug outward. Inch after inch of cock boring into his depths, then sliding outward leaving him wanting. The bed rocked slowly, gently, with Benjamin’s gentle pace.

Oliver couldn’t believe he was going to come again so soon. He stroked harder, faster, unable to stop himself. As Benjamin fucked him, rubbed up against him while holding him around the neck, hot exhales caressing his neck, he began to jerk and shudder, then he cried out as his cock spurt wad after wad of cum. It rained down on his chest then stomach, and he kept stroking until his hand moved slickly along his flexing cock.

“Fuck…can’t hold it…” Benjamin exclaimed, and Oliver felt the hard shove, the push of cock into his depths, then the jerking and shuddering of Benjamin against him.

 

Never Can Say Goodbye

Oliver drove slowly along the old road until he saw the gate to the Mayfield Manor. He prepared to turn while thinking of the summer. How he spent as much time as possible with Benjamin. How they hiked the trails, stayed in Asheville or Charlotte over weekends, introduced Benjamin to his family having him over for lunch or dinner. But the thing he thought of the most was the nights in Benjamin’s bed. The pure carnal lust of their sex. The physical nature of it, and the intimacy that it gave them. But the intimacy was never as great between them as it was during the morning after, when he woke in Benjamin’s bed and the subsequent gentle slow sex that resulted.

He came out into the open front yard, following the gravel drive until he was circling around to the side between the house and garage.

Benjamin swung open the back door and stepped out shirtless, wearing cargo shorts. He looked at the familiar body. He was drawn toward it, and the person it represented. To think this was their last night together before he had to go back to Chapel Hill and Benjamin back to England made him breathless. It felt like a part of him was about to be removed.

He climbed out of his car and headed across the parking court hearing the gravel crunch with each footfall.

“Hey,” said Benjamin, and Oliver could hear the sadness that he was feeling.

“You all packed up to head out in the morning?” asked Benjamin as Oliver drew near.

“Yes; and you?”

“Yes.”

Oliver knew Benjamin needed to be on his way by nine to get to the airport in time. He could wait until after lunch to head back to Chapel Hill, but the thought of lingering around his home with Benjamin gone was too much. He was going to head out as soon as he got home, thinking the three-hour drive would let him work through his emotions about their parting.

It wasn’t meant to be permanent. They planned to get together as much as possible. Oliver to fly to England for several days before Christmas, then Benjamin flying over during his spring break, then again for the summer. They had it all planned out, the means of getting together while they finished their degrees. Oliver knew what they had not discussed was what would happen after graduation. Would one of them move to be with the other or would that be it for them. He tried not to think of it, desperate to make himself think of anything else. When he stepped up Benjamin, rose on his toes to kiss him, his hands touched the chest, feeling the warm skin, and for a moment he forgot about that unknown future and let himself be carried away by the moment.

“You’re late,” said Benjamin, smiling with a mischievous grin.

“Only a few minutes,” Oliver replied.

As Oliver moved past Benjamin he was suddenly being lifted. Benjamin grabbed him up and carried him into the house. Through the mudroom, the kitchen and into the living room. It made Oliver’s heart race, the suddenness of it, and the feel of the bare chest against his arm. Playfully tossed onto the sofa, Benjamin was on him, tugging the t-shirt over his head, working jeans loose, then boxers and jeans down his legs. He was naked in no time and Benjamin was between his legs sucking his cock. He hardened in the warm slick mouth, then pumped upward, with a slow fucking motion.

Benjamin rose to his knees stroking his own cock. The shorts were undone and soon being kicked off one foot across the room.

“Fuck, I want you,” Benjamin uttered.

Oliver raised his legs, feeling hands take each by the ankle. Then he felt cock against his ass. Yes, I want you, too. He wanted Benjamin in the worst way. Physically, the way of two men fucking.

The cock penetrated his ass and he lay back, eyes closed, mouth open gasping for breath, as inch after inch sank into his hole. Benjamin began to fuck, to push inward, tug outward, at times so far as to nearly slip free. And Oliver took it, every stroke, every deep penetrating push inward. He clutched at the sofa, then each of Benjamin’s thighs. His own cock hardened, and with the barest of manipulation, his hand grew slick with its drooling.

It was maddening. Oliver wanted this fuck. The physicality of it. The roughness and fast pace. He wanted Benjamin inside him, as deep as he could get. But he wanted it to keep going and knew that would be impossible with the brutal pace at which they were fucking.

Benjamin pulled out and stood on knees between his legs. He looked up confused, disappointed at the emptiness he felt. Then he grinned, knowing it was only to allow for another position. He sat up, rolled over to his knees, hands braced on the arm of the sofa. He looked back as Benjamin moved to him. He felt the slick of Benjamin’s drooling cock across this ass, then the pressure at his opening as Benjamin prepared to penetrate him again. He held his head down and slowed his breathing, then moaned as cock sank back into his depths.

Benjamin pressed against his ass, leaned over his back, and circled his neck with one arm. He was pulled upright until pressed against the bare chest. It was hot against his skin. And slick, and they moved with ease against each other.

Benjamin began to fuck, to shove cock upward into his depths. Over and over, cock piston in his hole as his own flopped with their movement. Then Benjamin had him in hand, stroking his slick cock until he was working his ass back and forth, back on the cock, forward, pushing his own through the fist.

“Benjamin!” Oliver cried out, then shuddered with release. Cum sprayed the arm of the sofa, then left pools on the cushion, while Benjamin didn’t slow, didn’t lose rhythm, just kept fucking, driving into his depths. The cock moving through his opening while he came was too much and he shuddered and jerked with the stimulation. Then Benjamin held him tighter, bearhugging their bodies together. He felt the hot exhales and heard the gasping for breath as Benjamin shuddered and jerked with his own release.

 

The shower ran hot, the bath quickly steaming up. Oliver leaned back against the tile wall, watching Benjamin adjust the shower head, then turn toward him. A hand on his chest, then rubbing upward until holding him by the neck. Then they kissed, passionately, lovingly. Benjamin pressed against him making him grow aroused again.

“Oliver, we need to talk about after college.”

Oliver became anxious, worried about what Benjamin was going to say. He looked at the vivid blue eyes, the rosy cheeks, redder than normal within the heat of the shower. It made him short of breath. Was this love, he wondered. He had lain awake night after night wondering about it. With Benjamin, he had no doubts.

“Okay.”

“I know why you’ve avoided talking about it. You’re worried I’ll have to stay in England, and you don’t think you could move there. Am I right?”

Oliver nodded, unable to say it.

“I know it would be hard for you to move. London is great, fantastic, but it is damn near impossible to live in. It would be tough for me, and I can’t imagine what it would be like for you. Together, we could do it, but it would be asking a lot. There are other cities, some great places, but…

“I can’t ask you to move there, but if things are still good between us when we finish our studies, do you think you can accept me moving here…for you?”

Oliver heard what Benjamin said but it didn’t register, not at first. Benjamin would move to the states to be with him if he would accept it. He had to make himself breathe. He looked down, gathering control of himself, then looked back into those blue eyes.

“It’s what I want more than anything.”

 

Oliver lay on the bed with water droplets still clinging to his skin. Benjamin moved over him, connected their bodies once again with his penetration. Benjamin moved on him, body undulating in such a familiar manner, Oliver soon moved in rhythm with it. Pushing upward as Benjamin pushed down, increasing the pleasure of their fuck.

They would continue late into the night. One fuck after the next until both were spent and exhausted. Then they would fall into an exhausted sleep, unable to hold their eyes open.

 

Seven Years Later

Benjamin typed furiously on the keyboard to his computer. Word after word, sentence after sentence, creating paragraphs that told a story of his own creation. He was nearing the end of it, the place he wanted to bring it to a close. It had taken him three years to get to this point. It was his second attempt at a novel, the first stashed away in a box on one of the shelves behind him. He knew it had flaws, too many breaks in structure, too many gaps in the storyline or worse, one scene or another going on for far too long. He planned to start over with it. But that story was hard for him to tell, but one he felt compelled to try. He just wasn’t ready and knew he had rushed through the first typing of it. But this second novel had been like a purging. The words left his mind and came into being on the screen. He had twenty-nine chapters, an estimated three hundred and twenty pages or so, depending on font and page size. It was a novel, one of his own making.

He glanced up when a butterfly fluttered by the window and he watched it for a long time, marveling at the life that existed in the backyard. He looked at the back of the house, with its screen porch and large dormer window above to the master bedroom. The screen door opened to stone steps that descended to a stone path that curved through the heavily landscaped yard. There were shrubs, flowering plants, and ground covers, but no grass that required mowing. The path led to his writer’s shed. It had been a tool shed, one built long ago with full cut framing not from any lumberyard, but from someone’s small sawmill. He remembered how every stud had the markings of the saw blade and were aged to a dull gray and so hard driving nails into them had been near impossible. But once finished with its metal roof and shingled siding, sitting on a stone floor, it had been more perfect than he had imagined. It was narrow, not more than eight feet wide, but it was twenty-four feet long, giving him space for a half bath and some storage on one end, and at the other, a large picture window over a built-in desk where he worked long hours on his novel and a few short stories he had managed to get published. Between his desk and the other end, the walls were lined with shelves full of books, except for the glass door and side lite halfway along one the wall. Most where his books, books discovered in used bookstores or received as gifts from his friends. But among them were also books from the old Mayfield Manor. The year he graduated college, the family had finally agreed to sell it. He had asked for none of the proceeds from the sale, instead asking for as many of the books from the library collection they would allow him to take. He had been shocked when his aunts told him to take all of them, it would do them the favor of not having to deal with them.

He had to put most in storage that summer, where they stayed until last year, when the house renovations and his writer’s shed were finally finished. Two bedrooms along the left side of the house, opposite the living and dining rooms, had been converted into a library. It left only one bedroom on the ground floor, but with a master suite and a small bedroom upstairs, it was an extravagance easily afforded.

Benjamin sat back and stared out while he once again daydreamed of his life. It seemed a fairy tale, something not real. It had been seven years since that first summer staying in the old place, where he met Oliver James Whelan. The summer flashed before him. The hikes, the two of them in the kitchen together, the walks in Asheville, Charlotte, or Greenville, strolling along the shops, restaurants, breweries, and the lazy days lying in bed. Then the sex, the lying together just touching and kissing and talking quietly about everything, then nothing of importance.

He thought of the times they could get together after that first summer. A week before Christmas in the UK, then summer breaks back at the manor, or meeting Oliver at a beach along the coast, and every summer until graduation back at the manor.

A white truck pulled into the drive and up to the garage. Visible over the row of shrubs lining the drive, Benjamin watched Oliver climb out. Dressed in a heavy shirt and pants, clothes suitable for climbing and hiking in the mountains, Oliver came through the gap in the shrubs into full view. Benjamin could see that he was filthy, mud and dirt covering his clothes and smeared along each arm, even on his face. Oliver’s cap was pulled low to shield the blue eyes and Benjamin could see it is stained with sweat and just as dirty. Then he noticed the smiling face, the shear happiness being expressed, and he laughed, aloud, for the happiness was contagious.

He watched Oliver go through the screen door, kick off his boots then strip off his socks. Barefoot, Oliver eased into the house, and Benjamin knew it was to go get cleaned up.

He reflected on their life, the few years after college where he followed Oliver to south Florida. Oliver worked with a team looking for ways to save the swamps and Everglades. It had depressed Oliver, the futility of it with the threat of a sea level rise that would submerge the whole region. After two years, Oliver found the job that brought them to the mountains outside Monticello, Virginia. It had been the perfect move. Oliver was back in terrain he knew and being close to Monticello, it gave Benjamin the ability to take up teaching, exposing young minds to the masters of great literature. And being in an atmosphere of academia, he had finally felt like he could write.

He felt content, something his mother had told him was more important that some notion of eternal happiness that did not exist. But he did feel happiness too. No, he didn’t go around laughing all the time, but he felt it, this internal contentment that was a special kind of happiness.

He saved his work, closed the file, and rolled back from the desk. Oliver would be in the shower by now, soaped up scrubbing the dirt from his skin. He stepped out his shed, locked the door, and crossed the yard.

Inside, he made his way up the stair, down the short hall to their bedroom. The door stood open, and he entered working the buttons free on his shirt. By the time he was at the bathroom door, he was naked, everything laid out on the bed. He eased the door open and looked into the steamed filled bathroom at the blurred figure within the shower. White suds cascaded down the back as the head tilted under the spray. He moved across the room and swung the glass door open.

“What took you so long?” asked Oliver, looking over his shoulder.