Don't Judge a Book by Its Cover (8 page)

“Because, like you, I’m very good at hiding. We’ve both learned how to blend into the local environment, each of us in different ways.”

“When you put it that way, I guess we’re really pretty good at what we do!”

“Damned right!” I said enthusiastically (but quietly as well).

We looked at each other for another moment, neither of us putting into voice the thousands of thoughts and questions that were whipping around through our minds. He finally broke the silence. “Can I…?”

“Anything!” I said, a bit too quickly.

He chuckled. “Kiss you?”

“Yes,” I said. “But only if I can kiss you too.”

“I’m not an expert on these things—I’ve never kissed anybody—but I think it takes two of us to really pull off a good, proper kiss.”

I chuckled too. Before I had a chance to react, Bill closed the distance between us. His face was in my face. His lips were an inch from mine. My mouth was open in excitement; his was as well. Finally, tentatively, hesitantly, shyly, our lips closed the remaining distance and gently touched.

O
UR
first kiss was so quick, so dignified. Neither one of us seemed to want to overreact. It was almost as if he was as shocked as I was that he’d found another gay man. I raised my hand and gently traced my fingers down his chest, over his abs. I gently put my hand on his side and slid it over onto his back. I pulled him in for a repeat attempt. This time we were both bolder as our lips came together again.

Even though neither of us had read any instruction manuals on kissing techniques, I think we did a pretty respectable job for our first time. We continued for some time, only breaking apart when we felt the need to pant for air. The heat of his body was making me feel hot as well.

“My God, you look hot!” he said.

“Me?” I asked incredulously. “
Me?
”

“Yes, you. Do you see anybody else in this room with us?”

We kissed again. This time he pulled me over on top of his body as he rolled over onto his back. He spread his legs a bit so that I was lying between them and across his torso. Holy sweet mother of God, did that ever feel good!

I laid my head on his chest for a moment. “I hear your heart beating,” I said, astonished. I’d never been that close to another person to be able to hear their heart beating like that. It was one of the simplest but most beautiful things I’d ever experienced in my entire life.

Since my head was on his chest, it just seemed reasonable for me to dart my tongue out and gently lick the closest nipple. I’d always been intrigued by male nipples. I didn’t know why we had them or what they were good for, but since we had them it seemed only reasonable to try playing with them. Apparently I did something that felt good because Bill arched his back slightly and gasped as I ran my tongue around his very erect left nipple.

Emboldened, I licked some more, kissed his nipple, and then tried very gently nipping it. I swiped my tongue back and forth rapidly and repeatedly, which seemed to do good things to the man.

“I didn’t know that that would feel like it does,” he gasped.

To give equal time, I moved over to the other nipple and repeated the actions.

He pulled me up and kissed me again, much more aggressively and urgently this time. His tongue was everywhere in my mouth. Our enthusiasm for being together seemed to be growing exponentially. His hands had more options than mine did at the moment. I hadn’t even realized, but he had his hands resting on my ass, gently kneading and massaging my butt. Who knew that something so simple could ever feel so incredibly fantastic!

We talked about wanting to do more but agreed that more involved activity would have to wait until we had more time and were more awake. So we cuddled, kissed, talked, kissed some more, and eventually in the early hours of the morning, fell asleep.

I
T
TURNED
out that we got relatively little sleep that night as we were far more interested in exploring each other’s bodies than we were in sleeping. Well, actually we craved both, but given limited time and new toys, we opted for the body exploration thing over sleep. Still, the human body craved sleep, even when it was inconvenient or there were other things that we would rather do.

Since it was Saturday there was no overwhelming need to be up early—or at least there was no need for
other
households to be up early. But early was my mother’s standard operating procedure. My mother was definitely not one to put off a task and strongly favored getting errands done not just early, but immediately.

When she got up at some ungodly hour of the morning and saw that the roads had finally been plowed, she thought we should all be up to go shovel out Bill’s car. She didn’t know that we had only gotten a couple of hours of sleep and that we would rather spend the remainder of the weekend continuing our activities from last night. Ugghhh!

At 6:00 a.m., after letting us sleep in for what she saw as several extra hours, my mom was anxious for us all to be up and out of bed. When Bill reluctantly opened his eyes, he looked at me and muttered, “What the hell?”

“Ugghh!” I moaned. “My mom wants us to get up and go shovel out your car.”

“Can’t we do that later? I’d rather stay here with you naked in bed.”

“Me too. But I can’t very well tell her that, can I?”

“No.” He rubbed a hand across his face, hoping to wipe some of the sleepiness from his eyes—it didn’t work.

We very reluctantly hauled our sleepy asses out of my warm and inviting bed and went into the bathroom together. If we hadn’t been so sleepy we probably wouldn’t have dared—or had the balls—to shower together. We climbed into the shower together and scrubbed each other’s backs. Of course, we also succeeded in getting one another rock hard. Since the theme of the morning seemed to be “Be Responsible and Take Care of Things,” that’s exactly what we did, jerking each other off. We climbed out of the shower when we began to run out of hot water. If there had been an endless supply of hot water, I have no doubt that we would have stayed a bit longer—like an hour or two.

When we appeared in the kitchen, my mother offered Bill coffee, but she wouldn’t offer me any. For some reason he appeared more adult, more manly to her way of thinking I guess. If she only knew some of the things he had done the night before, she might not hold the same opinion. I, on the other hand, was well acquainted with and was becoming rapidly very fond of his manliness.

“You boys look half-asleep,” she finally observed.

“We are,” I said, putting my head down on the table for effect. “We were up a lot later than you were.”

“Well, there’s your problem,” she said, as if that explained everything.

Grouchily, I responded, “No, getting up so damned early is the problem. If we waited a few hours, there might be some sunlight and we wouldn’t freeze our butts off out there. It’s gonna be cold enough as it is.”

“It’s not going to get very warm today, so better to get your work done early so you can know it’s done.”

I wanted to growl or at least bare my teeth at her, but somehow I held my tongue, or teeth.

We ate something—I wasn’t awake enough to tell what it was or for it to register. All too soon we were climbing into my dad’s big SUV, all wrapped up like polar animals with hats, coats, gloves, scarves, and boots. Since Bill didn’t have a coat or any of the other things, my mother had outfitted him with some of my father’s stuff.

It was absolutely freezing that morning. I don’t know if it was because it was so early or what, but I shivered despite all of the layers of protection I had on my body. Being naked, wrapped around Bill’s naked body in my nice warm bed would feel so very much nicer than what we had ahead of us.

As anticipated, the school parking lot had been plowed. My dad knew the guy who took care of that job and knew that he was very diligent in his work. I had no doubt that the job had been done at the first possible instant. I wondered if he was some distant relative of my mother. There certainly was a particular family resemblance.

Bill’s car was the only one in the lot and was absolutely buried. I didn’t know that so much snow could be around and on top of one car. This snow had been heavy and wet, so as the temperature plummeted, the snow had frozen into a heavy mess.

It took all three of us well over an hour of chipping, shoveling, and digging to excavate Bill’s car. I was seriously pissed because I was freezing my butt off and there was zero guarantee we were going to be able to get his car started. As I recalled, I had rescued Bill because his car wouldn’t start. The subzero temperatures had probably not helped the matter.

When we got the snow moved so that we could get the door open, Bill tried to start the car with the anticipated results. My dad had him pop the hood and started poking around. My dad knew a little bit more about cars than I did—which was next to nothing—but he wasn’t able to diagnose the problem. He called a friend of his who was a whiz at such things. He was able to come right over and assess the situation.

He conferred with my dad and then pulled his car up to the front of Bill’s. Using jumper cables to connect the battery in his car with the one in Bill’s car, he called out for Bill to try starting his car. It was a bit of a struggle, but Bill’s car finally came to life.

After disconnecting the cables, he lowered Bill’s hood and came around to the open door. “Your battery is really old and probably will not hold a charge for long. When you turn it off it’ll probably be dead again in no time. Better get a new one in today.”

“Damn!” Bill observed. “I don’t have any money.”

My dad and his buddy conferred, and the man disappeared before we could thank him. “Don’t worry,” Dad said when he saw our concern, “he’ll be right back.”

The heater in Bill’s car was beginning to put out a tiny bit of warmth, but it was certainly not balmy by any stretch of the imagination.

Ten minutes later my dad’s buddy drove back up to the front of Bill’s car and got out. “Turn it off,” he ordered.

After raising the hood, he set about disconnecting the battery and removing it from its spot under the hood. He popped a brand new battery into its place and reconnected it, yelling to Bill to give it a try. The car started immediately and decisively, which brought a smile to everybody’s face.

As my dad and his buddy were closing up the hood, Bill looked at me and said, “What am I gonna do? I don’t have the money. I don’t have any money.” He looked like he was close to panic.

I stepped away from the door and asked my dad’s buddy how much the battery cost. His answer surprised me. “Nothing,” he simply said.

“Nothing? How is that?”

“Your dad took care of it.”

Bill looked back and forth between all of us, completely at a loss.

My dad’s buddy took off with our profound thanks for coming out on such a cold morning and helping us out. Bill looked at my dad and said, “I don’t have the money. How much do I owe you?”

“I know you don’t have the money,” he said. “I heard you earlier. But your car needs a battery so I got you a battery. You don’t owe me anything. No, I take that back. Someday in the future when you’re able to do it, all I want is for you to help someone else out when they’re in need. Pass it on down the line. Can you do that for me?”

“Yes, sir!” he answered enthusiastically. “But, really, I need to pay you for this. This is too much!”

“There’s nothing to pay. It’s all paid for. Now, you coming back to the house or are you headed straight home?”

“Your house,” he answered immediately.

My dad asked me to ride with Bill. He didn’t have to ask me twice or twist my arm. I climbed into Bill’s car through the driver’s door (we hadn’t shoveled enough room to get the other doors open). Bill climbed in behind me, closed the door, and put his car into drive. We were never so pleased as when we drove out of the snow pile that just a short time earlier had buried his car.

We were back at my house in five minutes. Bill parked his car, and we went inside to try to warm up, if warming up was even a possibility at this point. My mom had hot chocolate waiting along with some more of her cinnamon rolls. Since Bill and I had both sweat a lot from manual labor, we took turns showering once again. Unfortunately we had to go sequentially instead of simultaneously. We were both awake that time and didn’t dare to push our luck by us going into the bathroom together again.