The Village

Seth’s Perspective

Oh man the place was a mess. I mean, the location was great, out in the country, right down the street from Max and Brody. The property was fantastic with a small barn out back, a two car garage, and five acres of land… everything else we looked at in our price range just had tiny yards. It was Saturday morning and we had been out with Denny (a gay realtor that one of our realtor friends in St Louis found for us) since 9AM and had looked at over a dozen houses. It was about 6PM and this was our second visit to Old Lady Johnson’s place (AKA The Witch’s House) that day. It was a nice size, about 1,800 square feet, but Ugh! It needed so much work. Were we up for it? Zach was starting his new job at the law firm and I was building The Village were we really in a position to take on a rehab too? And how much would it cost? We had a buttload of student debt and could barely afford the down payment. On the other hand, the place was livable as is, and we planned on staying there and building a life so we didn’t have to update everything right away.

As we stood in front of the place, we heard gravel crunching as an old pick-up made its way towards us. The truck pulled up beside us and Brody’s cousin Bubba got out. I had met Bubba a few times on my visits here, he was a general contractor and was working on something across the street at Harris and Terrance’s place and Brody asked him to come meet us. Brody’s Gladiator drove up a few minutes later and he and Max got out. After a quick greeting and introducing everyone to Denny, Bubba took a walk through the house with us. The place had been closed up tight for about six months and smelled stale with the faint odor of mothballs hanging in the air. The furniture was old, dusty, outdated, but functional. The carpet was so old and almost worn through in spots. The kitchens and bathrooms probably hadn’t been touched since the house was built in the 1920’s. It was the quintessential old lady house. Old Lady Johnson had moved to New Mexico with her son and refused to let them sell the place. Sadly, she passed away last month (according to Brody and Dylan, she was probably over a hundred years old when they were kids).

“They’ve taken out all her personal effects and anything her kids wanted. None of them want to deal with the place and just want it gone according to the listing agent” Denny said as we walked through for the second time. Bubba was taking notes and lifting the corners of the carpets trying to get a look at the hardwood floors underneath. “If you’re willing to make an “as is offer” and clear out the rest of the stuff in here, you could probably get it for a steal… they just want it gone. Make it easy on them.”

“She’s got great bones” Bubba interrupted. “The foundation seems solid, the roof is newer, the systems have all been updated, and it looks the central air aint been there more than a year or two.” He continued to look around and shrew his thoughts on what we could do. “The hardwoods have probably been covered since the house was built and look perfect. Y’all could probably just pull the carpet out, shine em up and they’d be ready to go without and real expense.” He pulled up a corner of the carpet in the living room to show us, they looked brand new. “I know the kitchen is outdated, but those cabinets are real oak and in great shape, y’all can’t find ‘em like that no more. You could strip the paint, stain ‘em to match the floors, switch out the hardware… I could even put some frosted glass panes in a few of them to update the look, then all y’all would hafta do is put in new countertops, a sink, stainless appliances, and she’d look brand new. We could do similar fixes to the two bathrooms.” Bubba went on. “Listen, if you boys did the demolition yourselves and slapped on a coat of paint when the work was done, me and my crew could spruce this place up for under twenty k in materials and labor.”

“That’s doable” Zach said looking at me with his head tilted and a smile on his face that almost pleaded with me to agree.

“I can picture a deck and a patio out back, and maybe taking the wall down between the kitchen and the dining room to open it up: I said trying to visualize this as our home. It was coming together for me.

“We can do all that later, for now if Bubba and his team can help us make this livable, it would be a good investment and we could enhance it over the years once we pay off our student loans” Zach said being the voice of reason. Max and Brody were eerily silent through the whole discussion.

“Listen, you’ll be hard-pressed to find another place with this much land in your price range” Denny added. 

“Ugh, but so much work, and what are we gonna do with all the shit in this place?” I asked as I looked around seeing more of a project than a home.

“Donate it to The Village” Max said speaking for the first time since we entered the house. “hell, this stuff could furnish half the efficiency apartments on the second floor, plus you can write off the donation.” Denny asked what The Village was and Max and I gave him the pitch.

His mouth dropped as he listened to tails of kids like Craig, Mason, Taylor, and Colton, and was familiar with the building that Brody and Max had purchased downtown. “Wow! That sounds amazing, and all based here in Wilmington?” He asked.

“Yup, our base is here, but we’re helping kids from all over the country. Sometimes they need to leave home to be safe.” I answered.

“How the hell have I never met any of your before?!” Denny exclaimed. “I know the gay community extremely well and can help connect you with people, resources, and donations.” Both Max and I were glued to his every word. We told him about the upcoming dedication ceremony for “Harrington House” (that’s what Max and Brody were naming the building in honor of his grandpa). We were planning a dedication ceremony for the building, we hoped to invite the board (which consisted of a lot of talented and generous friends and family), local chamber members, local businesspeople, and anyone connected with the local gay community. Chip (my old landlord) and his firm were handling PR for us pro bono and had built a database of folks to invite. The rumors about us opening a halfway house downtown were already circulating and we were doing our best to squelch those rumors and put a positive light on The Village while at the same time keeping the news about the second floor apartments quiet. We didn’t want to make our in-house clients vulnerable. As far as the world knew, The Village had their counselling offices on the first floor, and the owners of the building were renting out the apartments above to the general public.

“Listen” Bubba said bringing us back to the business at hand. “We could get a dumpster out here as soon as you close and you can start siftin’ through stuff. Put the good stuff in the garage, and dump the rest. You could sort this place out in a coupla’ weekends. Our work wouldn’t take that long” Bubba said as he started to map out the project in his head. He made it sound so simple, but I knew damn well it would become our own personal hell.

“What do you guys think?” Zach asked Brody and Max.

“Aint any worse than Grammaw’s place was” Brody said.

“Plus, we’d have our own gay country road” Max added with a chortle. “With Terrance and Harris across the street and us down the road.” We all laughed while Denny perked up.

“Are you serious, three gay couples out here?” Denny asked with a gleam in is eye. Max and Brody gave him the lay of the land and told him about BroMax farm. “You’re BroMax Farm?” He said with excitement in his voice. “I’ve been watching that place for a couple of years and was wondering what it was all about.” He looked to me and Zach, “If you paint it like their place, this road will come alive!” He was genuinely excited. “Seriously guys, half my clientele is gay and a lot of them want some land… especially the lesbians” he laughed. “If anything comes up for sale out here, I could fill it with more gay neighbors. In all honesty, if you two don’t want this place, I have two couples that would jump on it. This road could be a goldmine.” He made Zach and I both feel like we were getting in on the ground floor of something great.

We left the Witch’s House with a LOT to think about. Denny followed us back to BroMax, he wanted to see what Brody and Max had done with the place. He gushed as he toured the property, I thought the guy was gonna have a heart attack when he saw the candle barn. “Oh my god, if you ever sold, you could parcel this building, sell it separately and almost double your profits. This is amazing. You guys did some smart things.”

While Denny gushed, Zach and I left the conversation and went into the house. We pulled out Zach’s laptop and sat at the kitchen island to crunch some numbers. This was very doable, but very scary. Denny stopped in the house to say goodbye and we agreed to touch base the next day to let him know our thoughts, he encouraged us to make an offer. After he left, we sent the listing to Zach’s parents, then skyped them to discuss. They were so supportive, his mother even offered to come out for a couple of weeks to help with the rehab. They talked about their first home on Main Street in their small Wisconsin town and how they rehabbed it themselves bit by bit. They even offered to help us financially (as they always did, and as always, we turned them down, it was important for us to do this on our own). We had so much to think about! Max and Brody took us to a local bar/restaurant for a late dinner and we talked some more.

“You two haven’t said much of anything today” Zach said looking at our two friends. “What do you think?”

The two looked at each other, then Brody nodded at Max like he was giving him the okay to speak for the two of them. “We’re keeping our mouths shut because we are fucking biased as hell” Max said with a heavy sigh.

“Lay it on us” Zach said with a grin as we both stared at them expectantly.

“Just fuckin’ buy it already, y’all!!!” The quiet Brody yelled so loudly that the entire bar stopped and looked our way. The rest of us laughed as our usually reserved, anti-social friend went on a tirade. “You guys livin’ across the road. C’mon! That house has been sittin’ there empty for months then just magically goes on the market the day y’all start lookin’. If that aint a gotdamned sign I don’t know what the hell is!” Brody was on a roll and kept going. “The house is perfect, it aint no worse than Grammaw’s one when we rehabbed it. Plus, you got Bubba and his crew, us right freaking there, and Terrance and Harris across the road to help. Oh my god! You, us, Harris, and Terrance decoratin’ that road at Christmas, folks’ll come from miles around to see it” Brody was on fire! He went on and on while the rest of us just watched him with huge smiles, amused by the rare display of passion and excitement from him. He went on for a good ten to fifteen minutes nonstop then ended with “You aint never gonna find a place next to people who love y’all as much as we do. Period.” Brody was right. By the end of dinner, we had decided to write an offer… we just didn’t tell them.

That night in bed, Zach held his naked body against mine… my big spoon. He whispered his daydreams in my ear “We could raise kids in that house with our best friends just across the street” that was a dream to me. So... so rural… so American… so… so… NORMAL. The life and ac ceptance I had always craved. Zach kept dreaming in my ear as he moved his hardening shaft up and down my ass crack and poking at my tight pucker every now and then. The warmth and intimacy of his body coupled with the warmth and intimacy of the words he was sharing had me wanting him more than ever. I pushed my ass back begging the man who I was blessed to spend the rest of my life with to enter me. He kept whispering and moving his manhood up and down my crack, after a few minutes he stopped using his mouth for words and instead put his tongue in my ear. FUCK! I loved it when he did that, I was so engrossed in the wet feeling in my ear, the warm body against mine, and the hard member pushing at my hole. His cock was dry and felt blunt, I reached my arm forward, barely reaching the drawer of the nightstand. I fumbled around with my fingertips until I found the bottle of lube I had ditched there when we unpacked.

The weird thing was that we hadn’t had sex during our last two weeks in St Louis, but we have been going at it like rabbits since we hit the road. Every time we visited BroMax Farm it seemed like we were both horny as hell… we chalked it up to the fresh country air. Whatever it was, I loved it and hoped if we moved in down the road our sex drives would continue to thrive.

I squirted some lube into my hand then reached back and applied it to my hole, I inserted my middle finger to make sure my hole was good and ready. Zach reached his hand in front of me beckoning for a squirt of lube, I obliged. He stroked his hand up and down his hefty member getting it nice and slick, then he took a slickened finger and slipped it into my tight hole next to mine. Damn, two fingers, each working their way in and out giving me different sensations. I contracted my hole around them, it felt so good. Zach moaned into my wet ear, damn, it was such a quiet, intimate exchange between the two of us. I was getting lost in the moment when he withdrew his finger, pulled mine out, and I felt him enter me. His head breached my ring easily and his shaft moved steadily forward, I felt more and more full with each and every inch. It wasn’t long before he hit bottom and his warm smooth balls slapped lightly against my firm ass. I just lay there with his arms around my body, his dick up my ass, and his tongue in my ear. I was already in another world when he reached his slickened hand around and grabbed my tool. The stroke of his hand was perfectly in sync with the rhythm of his hips as he pushed slowly in and pulled slowly out of me. He moved slow and steady savoring every sensation my tight hole was giving him… the feeling was mutual. The slow movement was awakening every nerve ending in me, I squeezed my hole and contracted around him in appreciation. His moan was low, and long sending vibrations through my being as his tongue explored my ear again.

From there it was just ten minutes of ecstasy as he slowly made love to me. He removed his tongue from my ear and kissed the nape of my neck tenderly before he moved to my neck. His hands massaged any part of my body they could find as he expertly navigated me onto my stomach. My face was in the pillow, my ass in the air, and Zach’s expert tool in my hole still slowly driving me insane. I couldn’t take it anymore and decided to take what I wanted. I bucked back against every forward thrust making the sensations more intense for both of us. Soon our lovemaking went from slow and tender to impassioned and focused as he concentrated on breeding me, and I concentrated on milking his perfect organ. After another dozen strokes Zach climaxed, sending his precious seed up my channel and into my guts. His warmth filled me as I purred into the pillow.

Zach lightly slapped my ass as he pulled out, then I felt his fingers breach my hole, scooping out his swimmers. Then he told me to lay on my back and totally shocked me by lubing up my hard cock with his spent juice. He used his cum to slicken his hole then climbed on top me. He put his hands on my chest and threw his head back as he lowered himself down on me. He moved all the way down, then bounced up slowly. He dropped his head to look at me and our eyes locked as he bounced slowly up and down. His tight, rarely-used hole gripped me tightly and did its damnedest to milk the load out of me. Damn, it was so perfect, I fucking loved his surprise flip-fuck and was soon moaning my warning. When Zach realized how close I was he bounced up and down faster and begged me to breed him… and breed him I did. I shot my load powerfully up his perfect soccer-built ass. I gave his cheeks a double smack as I threw back my head and basked in the pure euphoria.

A massive smile invaded Zach’s face and the sparkle in his hazel eyes lit the darkness as he leaned in for a tender kiss. He wrapped his arms around me and held me for a bit before lifting himself off my softening manhood. My cock landed against my abs with a thud and a slosh and Zach moved down to clean it off before he lay beside me and spooned me again. I fell asleep in his arms with a feeling of total contentment and a satisfied smile.

The next morning was Sunday and we woke up and got ready for church. There was a Universalist Unitarian church downtown I wanted to try. I had struggled with religion and my relationship with god my entire life. My dad forced me to go to his cultish church for the first sixteen years of my existence, after I moved in with my brothers, I took control of that journey. The UU made me feel comfortable, they were less about The Bible and more about community. During college I got up and went to church every Sunday, that’s how I met Max. Max, however, had left organized religion behind after college, but he and Brody agreed to join us to check out our prospective new church. The service was nice and as always, helped me center myself. Afterwards we socialized in the basement of the church, it was an opportunity to talk to folks about The Village and we found a lot of support for our work. The four of us left the church and went to a cute little diner for breakfast. We talked more about The Witch’s house, The Village, and our plan for the day.

Sunday was painting day. We had a bunch of volunteers ready to meet us at the building to paint the offices and the apartments on the second floor. Dylan’s furniture contact told us that we could pick up the furniture for the waiting room and my therapy room anytime if we wanted them a little sooner. So, our plan was to take Old Blue (Brody’s truck) and Dylan’s truck over there mid-afternoon to get everything. If all went well, we’d have our offices done and functional for Monday morning.

After breakfast we went back to BroMax to get ready for an afternoon of painting, but our first order of business was to call Denny and let him know we wanted to make an offer. We discussed the details and he said he’d write it up, let the listing agent know it was coming and then email it to us to sign. Zach and I decided not to say anything about it to our family and friends until we had an accepted offer. We said goodbye to the dogs and Went out to the trucks to head downtown. Zach jumped in the Gladiator with Brody, and I got into Old Blue with Seth. We were the first ones at the building. Max and I had put together a plan before I left St louis earlier that week. We were going to tackle to offices with the volunteers, while Mason, Taylor and Colton finished up the two apartments upstairs… We were basically letting them earn their keep. The most difficult job would be painting the walls in the stairwell. Bubba us the ladders/scaffolding to make it easier (thank god, I had no clue how we were going to do it otherwise).

The four of us instantly went to work taping up the woodwork and spreading the drop cloths over the wood floors and random furnishings. With an hour the place was crawling with volunteers. Mason, Taylor, and Colton all showed up together in Colton’s old Corolla and jumped right in on the second floor apartments. Ricky and Timmy were working on the walls in the stairwell. Darius and Tommy (our friends, and Taylor’s Sponsors) showed up and joined right in. Gina and Dylan showed up with Maggie in a well-worn onesie ready to paint. Brody’s Daddy (who we all just call Daddy, all the kids took to calling him Big Daddy and he loved it) and his stepmother Betty Ann (BA for short) showed up with coffee and donuts. BA went nuts when she saw Zach. The two of them had formed a weird bond over the years and for unknown reasons she called him Biscuit. She was so happy we were moving to the area. Pretty much everyone I knew in NC was there along with several others I had never met. There was a mix of gay, straight, young, and old all there with a shared purpose. The place was buzzing with activity.

Once things were in full swing, Zach, Brody, Dylan, Darius, and Daddy took off in the pick-ups to get the furniture donations. While they were gone some of the folks from the neighboring businesses and houses a few blocks away who were walking past for whatever reason would stop in to welcome us. Most were just curious to know what was moving in and acted supportive (whether they really were or not remained to be seen). We kept our explanations simple “a nonprofit that helped homeless LGBTQ teens.” We had decided as a board not to mention that clients would be living on site for security purposes. We also had a PO Box for the residents to use for mail, we did not want this address connected to any of our clients… who knows who me be looking for some of the kids we take in.

About an hour or so after the guys left to get the furniture, Max, Gina, and I were painting the reception area when a woman and a man dressed in their Sunday best wondered into the building to nose around. “Mornin’” the man in the navy blue polyester suit and Blue and grey striped tie said politely with a very heavy southern twang. The woman stood stoically next to him wearing a very plain navy dress with a white and pink flower pattern while she clutched her old white purse with both hands in front to her.

“Good morning” I replied reaching out my hand. Max was standing next to me as we introduced ourselves… Max looked very apprehensive, but I was all smiles happy to have the public interested in our work.

“Y’all seem to be workin’ up a sweat in here and we just wanted to stop by after church services and see what was going on.” The gentleman said politely with respect. I explained the basics that we were a nonprofit that helped homeless LGBTQIA teens. “And by LGBTQ… um I A was it… teens y’all mean homosexuals” the man replied matter of fact like. Shit, my Texas church-going past all flooded back. I knew a judgmental homophobe when I met one, hell I was raised by one.

I was still forming a response in my head when Max chimed in and corrected his vernacular “By LGBTQIA teens we mean people.”  It was an interesting response. The man stood there sizing us up and was about to speak when Max continued, “We’re here to help homeless young people who don’t have the love and support of a family as all humans deserve. I’m glad you stopped by because we could sure use the support of folks like you and your fellow church members.” He had a charming smile on his face and his presence was big. He was posturing like a momma bear ready to protect her cubs.

“Well, our church is just down the road and as luck would have it, we have a program to help homosexuals find their way back to the Lord.” The gentleman said as he stood there with his perfect posture and looked Max in the eye. I asked the name of his church and when he answered, my blood went cold and my limbs went numb. It was the same church my father had belonged to. My father was a religious Zealot, he and members of his church had actually abducted my brother Brad several years ago in an attempt to “enroll him” in their “program to help homosexuals find their way back to the Lord” AKA conversion therapy.

My tone went from friendly to panicked. I feared these people, their church had ripped my family apart and I wanted no fucking part of it. “Well thank you for stopping by” I said as I walked towards the door and held it open basically shooing them out like a couple of flies that snuck in through a hole in a screen. Max just watched me as he tried to figure out what I was thinking. The couple scurried out the door at my insistence and I shut the door behind them.

“What the fuck was that all about?” Max asked trying to put the pieces together.

“That’s the same fucking church my father belonged to” I said breathing heavily. My heart was beating about 300 beats per second. Just hearing the name of that church sent fear through my veins. That was enough information for Max to understand… he knew my past. He gave me a hug.

A few minutes later the guys showed up with the furniture. I told Zach about the visit and he wrapped his strong arms around me and pulled me into another hug. He understood and made me feel safe again. We spent the next few hours painting, we all talked about the couple from the church and what that meant to the safety of our clients. We’d all have to be on high alert.

By the end of the afternoon, both floors and the stairwell had a fresh coat of paint. We moved the furniture into the waiting room and the therapy room. The place looked great and was ready to go! It was about 6PM, we were cleaning up and getting ready to call it a night when Ricky’s parents showed up with pizza for the crew. They owned a little pizza joint not too far away and were very supportive of The Village.

All in all, it was a good day, but my haunches were up, I was now very aware that acceptance of our work and compassion for our clients wasn’t a guarantee, and I would need to use caution and discretion.

That night when we got back to BroMax, I locked myself in our room and called my brother Brad. He saved me from my father’s church and was my reminder that adversity made people stronger. I was ready to be Atlas for these kids.

 

To be continued…