Walking Into Clouds
by Rick Beck
Chapter 2
After School
In the seedy side of town the bouncers stationed at the door of strip clubs, bars, and some shops, offering attention to the discerning male, held up big hands once we arrived at the door.
"Sorry, children," one bouncer said. "Kiddy day is next week."
They smiled and waved the soldiers, who looked fifteen or sixteen, inside. It was their look that got them a pass. Soldiers had money to spend.
We had to take a collection to buy burgers.
We were townies. There was trouble when a townie brought attention to himself in the forbidden zone. Simply looking the way we looked was a disadvantage in the red light district. Our age was prohibitive, but some of the soldiers didn't look eighteen, and they got into the clubs, when they came to town after being paid, but they weren't townies and the worst that happened to a drunken soldier was to be held until he sobered up and sent back to the base, regardless of his age.
It was easy to be discouraged once you were laughed at a few times. One street over from the nice side of town wasn't enough to find what I was looking for. Being turned down at the door of most clubs was a relief for me when I went there with my best buds.
I was out of the car and standing inside the forbidden zone. It was a start. When I came back alone, I'd be making my way deeper into the zone where I was sure I would find people like me.
I'd be ready when I returned to the seedy side of town.
At sixteen and seventeen none of us were ready yet, no matter how loudly our hormones raged. I would separate from my friends when I was ready to go find people like me.
I'd be back by myself to revisit those inviting streets. I'd find where the gay people hung out. I heard stories about gay men roaming streets deeper inside the forbidden zone. It might take time to locate them, but once it was time, I'd take whatever time it took, once I put school behind me.
Riding those streets with my friends, crotches straining, was excitement of a sort. With testosterone flowing, they were more sexual in speech and actions then at any time since we where adolescents using each other for sexual pursuits.
I was hiding my true nature from my friends. It meant lying to them in order to experience their lusty games. It's as close as I'd come to boys doing other boys, until I found boys like me. I didn't feel guilty about watching my friends play. We'd been friends forever. We did everything together, except I never joined their sex games. Seeing them fool around was as exciting as my life got.
If I talked about what I felt, I would have a lot fewer opportunities to be close to the action. Not talking, being the quiet man around my friends, was advantageous. I wasn't really lying. I did what they did. I wasn't specific about what I liked or why I liked it. Generically, it was understood that they liked girls. It was understood that I liked girls. What wasn't understood, I was gay and they weren't, but they fooled around and I didn't.
After graduation, I'd distance myself from my buds. The teams we were on would be done and we'd gradually drift apart.
I had no expectation of meeting one of them going the other way on a street in the forbidden zone, and if I did there was the proposition that we were both there for some version of the same reason. There would be no questions asked, after a hug, a handshake, and an awkwardly worded goodbye.
Store clerks at the most delectable shops were way too big to argue with when they waved frantically for us to turn around to go back out the door we just came in.
Even when we walked the bordering streets, we didn't get so much as a sniff of anything perverted. You might call it a fact finding mission, but the fact was, we weren't old enough to get close to anything erotic.
My buddies were put off by being called children. Even if we weren't old enough to gain entrance to the more spicy spots, we were young men who would be back sooner than later. On that we all agreed without saying those words.
When Fred approached a woman who was suggestively dressed, he asked, "How much for blow-jobs all around, baby."
"For you, sweety pie and a bunch of weenies like them? You couldn't afford me... if I did such a thing as that. But if I did give blow-jobs, before you'd get one you'd need to grow up..., asshole."
That is how that particular trip to town went. She took the wind out of my buddies' sails and sent us back to the car and a quiet ride home. There was no mention of what we were doing wrong. Guys from all over were going to town for some action.
It's not how we envisioned the evening's affairs ending, although I was chuckling all the way home. My buddies were becoming bolder on each trip to the seedy side of town, but their forwardness didn't match their appearance or deficiency in the age department.
Even prostitutes had standards.
Graduation was coming and that would change everything.
You knew things went bad when we drove past Boone's Burger Emporium without Barney mentioning a stop for burgers.
I tended to lag back when my buds pushed forward when we were around girls at school. Their approach toward girls was crude and lacked maturity. We were closing in on eighteen and around girls they continued to act like they were adolescents.
There was safety in numbers in this case and no one said anything about my advice to back off. They continued believing it was because I was shy and not because I was mature enough to know that girls got tired of boys thinking they were there to entertain them.
"Don't mind him. He's shy," my friends agreed.
"No, I just have better manners," I replied.
"Don't mind him. I was saying how nice you look today, Kat," Fred said.
"I look nice every day in case you haven't noticed," she said.
"It's a small hall, Kat. I'm not with him," I said.
I may have been shy but girls my age joined me for lunch and went to the library with me to work on class projects. I didn't represent some foreign species to them. We could talk, joke, and study together. I didn't represent a threat that I'd try to make time with one of them or chase them around the cafeteria.
I liked girls because they were sharper than most boys and they weren't obsessed with sex. I had no romantic interest in girls.
That's how I felt at the time. My feelings might change one day but they might not too. I dealt with how things were in the now. I could be nice to girls without wanting anything in return.
I wouldn't ask a girl out to make myself look good or to cover up that I was gay. Doing that was a road I wouldn't go down. I wouldn't hurt someone to make myself look a way I wasn't.
I wasn't ready to come out and I wouldn't use a girl to hide the truth either. I didn't come out because it would jeopardize the athletics that were such a big part of who I was.
Graduation was coming and my participation in scholastic sports would end. My life would go in a new direction and that was a direction I'd take as a gay man.
My buds had come home from town disappointed about their immediate prospects in the adult entertainment world. While I came home far more focused than before. I had no clear view of where I was going or what it would take to find what I was looking for. In their rejection I sensed my straightforward honest approach would get me closer to the people I wanted to get to know. I'd heard stories about it and now I'd been there. Going back alone would be easier for me.
Not wanting anyone to know that I needed the affection of another man to complete me, being determined to get that at a time of my choosing, I couldn't dive directly into the deep end and the unknown. I needed to go there to be there before I could go there to get down to business.
Now that I'd been there, it would be easier to go back. I would wait until the time was right and then I'd plan a return visit to the seedy side of town. What I was looking for would be there when I went back. Finding it might not be so easy, but I had time, and I would find that nice boy and see where we went together.
I was considered an introvert at school, because I was careful with whom I associated with. Once puberty struck, my awareness about my sexuality clarified. For a long time I wrote off my attraction to other boys as a natural part of growing up. Until well after puberty, I hung with the same guys, knowing that would end at some point. I was in no hurry and I let my life unfold on its own terms.
As an athlete, I was with my teammates most days, which included my best buds who played the same sports I played. There were practices, games, and seasons. There was no time for mischief or romance at that time.
That didn't mean that my best buds weren't becoming sexual and horny, but I assumed my buds were all straight. Since we were always together, I was there when they fooled around. My inability to participate didn't faze them in the least and I could watch, which was about as much sexual activity as I allowed myself in those days.
After I went through puberty, I was least likely to get out of my jeans. My four buds, Fred, Sqeaky, Jordy, and Barney, didn't hesitate getting out of theirs.
The sexual sessions started with, 'I'll show you mine if you show me yours.'
There was a simple reason why I didn't join in on the reindeer games. My friends were soft when their jeans came off. Just the idea of me being naked with my best friends got me hard. I had no romantic ideas about my friends. I didn't see myself riding off into the sunset with any of them, but the idea of sex with anyone had me as horny as it was possible for me to get. I couldn't let them see the state of my penis once the jeans came off.
How did I explain that I was hard, and they were soft, before the games began?
I was with my buds for years before there was any sex play. They were going to suspect that I enjoyed it more than they did. The evidence of that would stick out.
Sooner or later one of them would ask, 'What's up with that, Clete.'
Once the idea of jumping out of our jeans was proposed the first time, Fred said, "All boys our age do this. It's part of growing up."
"Yeah," we all agreed.
"Nothing to sweat, Clete," Fred said. "We won't laugh if yours is small. Nothing to be embarrassed about. Yours will grow. Ours grew. We all started out with little dicks."
No one agreed with this gem but silence was golden and Fred took guilt off the table before any of us made a move.
Fred was always most likely to initiate an escalation in the activities. Barney had been the leader of the pack until it turned sexual. Then it was Fred who set up the action.
I'd already grown as hard as I wanted to get. My problem was keeping it under wraps. I wasn't pulling out my stiff dick. I'd rather let them talk about how shy I was. As long as they let me sit in on the sessions, I didn't need to show them mine.
I didn't want them to ask why my dick got so hard.
Comparing dicks turned into touching each other. None of them were shy about playing doctor. Each was different. Barney was biggest, fatter. Fred was fatter but not as long as Barney's and those two got the lion's share of examination.
Jordy was tentative. Sqeak gave everyone a complete exam. Barney stood still for it. Fred instructed Sqeak on how to handle him.
"Pull down. Squeeze. Yeah, like that. Feel my balls."
I may have been pretending it didn't interest me, but I stored each probe to use later. I'd never been hotter than I was the first day my buds checked each other out. I swore to them that I wouldn't tell. I didn't say I wouldn't remember the details.
In the beginning Barney laid claimed having the biggest dick and he got no argument. After a while, Fred soon took first place in the big dick competition. Sqeak offered to be the judge. As time passed, each time we got together to compare notes, Barney and Fred stood face to face as Sqeak held their dicks together.
The day came when Sqeak proclaimed, 'He's got you in width and length, Barney. Fred had taken the lead in the dick department."
"Doesn't either. Let me do it," Barney said, holding his dick on top of Fred's.
"What have you been doing with that thing to get it to grow?" Barney wanted to know.
Once Barney lost his status as big dick among us, he grew more distant and joined in on mutual masturbation less and less, until he got his first girlfriend and he said, 'I don't do kid stuff anymore."
"Don't got to do nothing, Barn. I'm naturally endowed bigger than you," Fred said, turning the knife once he was biggest.
It was the day Barney quit talking about his size. There was no longer a competition, until Sqeak said, 'Let's see how I measure up against the champ."
Fred was way thick but sqeak was longer now. It was mixed results and the competition was on again. Barney ignored it. He'd been the first to grow hair and to get the growth spurt boys hope will come their way.
I figured you got what you got and you needed to make the most of it. I hadn't managed to make anything out of it yet but I did have big plans. Until the right time came, I would keep it under wraps.
By the time we were in the middle of ninth grade, Sqeak had grown, and grown, and was still growing.
His dick was big and Sqeaky noticed it was still growing. He did what any budding entrepreneur would do. He capitalized his product.
I stayed alert for things like that. When I heard rumors about how big sqeaky was. I wondered who talked. In my world there were only three other boys who knew Sqeaky was growing, a lot, and that was counting sqeaky.
After years of fooling around, why would one of us suddenly start talking? I couldn't see any of us mentioning it to other boys. It would give one pause to wonder how the information was acquired, but someone was obviously talking.
One boy told me, "Sqeaky said he had the biggest dick in school. He bet five bucks that no one was bigger."
"What?" I asked, not trusting me ears.
"Sqeak bet five...."
"I heard what you said," I said. "He didn't do that. It's a joke?"
"Bet me he didn't," the boy said. "I haven't seen it. I don't have five bucks, but my friend saw it. He told me it was plenty big."
"How many guys took him up on the bet?" I asked.
"I don't know. I don't know who took him up on the bet. So far he's the big winner in that department. That's what I heard."
This explained how it was Sqeak was suddenly treating us to games at the arcade and burgers at Boone's. None of us asked him where the money came from but I have to figure we all knew, which made me wonder how straight Sqeak was.
With the boys who knew all about their buds manhood, little was made of Sqeak's new found fame. Through it all, I'd pegged my buddies as close to how I saw them as I could.
Fred was Mr. Lusty. He initiated most of the sexual escapades from the beginning. Jordan was most likely to get naked first. Sqeaky was most likely to do anything. Barney lost interest in activities beyond the less and less frequent circle jerks. I could be depended on to watch whatever went on.
I wasn't sure what happened at times when a couple of my buds got together without the rest of us. Fred and Sqeaky were most likely to sleep over at Fred's house. Sqeak's house wasn't very inviting and his parents were the pits. These arrangements were made away from the group and I figured things out from their conversations.
Since Fred and Sqeaky paired off when we were together, I figured there was no reason they wouldn't use each other for fun and games when they were alone. That's speculation and a result of my over active imagination.
Sqeaky was most likely to stay at someone else's house but never at my house. I never asked and he never mentioned it. My parents were cool, but one on one, I feared I'd let the cat out of the bag, and it was a cat best left where it was for the time being.
I was privy to the inside goings on among me and my buds. After keeping my mouth shut for years, no one questioned that it was safe to do whatever they decided to do with me among them. Our activities were routine. It was routine for us to be with my buds no matter what we did, or in my case, didn't do.
Who would I tell? They didn't ask and I kept my mouth shut. Because I did, I witnessed the neatest thing I got to see involving Fred and Sqeaky, naturally. About the time we started high school, we'd been out back in Fred's above ground swimming pool, drinking his father's beer and Fred and Sqeaky were pretty well lit.
We were all sunburned and ready to come in out of the sun, after Fred broke into his father's stash of beer. Once the swim suits came off, Fred and Sqeaky began to wrestle. This was nothing new, but the proposition that went with it was. Already hard from the physical contact, the new larger Fred had a good idea.
"Let me fuck you, Sqeaky. I'll take it easy on you," Fred said.
While Sqeak's endowment was the talk of the school, that wasn't the direction Fred was going in. He'd added a new wrinkle that I figured was going to be turned down. As with most sexual issues, I didn't know anything about passion or what people did with it.
"Why don't you let me fuck you, Sqeak. It won't hurt," Fred said unconvincingly.
It was obvious the naked wrestlers had each other hot and bothered.
"OK," Sqeak said. "But you got to stop if I say to," Sqeaky countered.
I was hot and bothered thinking about Fred's fat dick slipping up Sqeaky's tight butt. It wasn't as exciting as I anticipated. It turned into a comedy of errors. Fred tried to hold a sweaty Sqeaky in place as he put pressure on the hot spot in question.
He spit on Sqeaky's butt and he put a gob in his hand. Instead of a real life drama, their attempt at linking together turned into a a comedy. With Fred applying maximum forward pressure, and with Sqeaky pushing back against Fred's raging stiff dick, they collapsed laughing, once Fred's dick shot up and out of Sqeak's crack.
I didn't think it was that funny but I'd only had one beer and I didn't drink much of that. I had my heart set on seeing two boys screw a few feet from where I sat, waiting for a proper conclusion. I wasn't going to get it that day.
Fred couldn't keep it up and Sqeak was too trashed to care. While we ended up in hysterics, I was disappointed. That's not to say they hadn't tried it before without us around and it didn't mean they wouldn't try it later on.
If that didn't get out, I suppose we'd kept our vow to maintain silence about the fooling around going on between us.
For me the idea of it was way hotter than the activity itself. I think by the time it was over, they both forgot what it was they were trying to do. We weren't big drinkers because we were athletes and this was an example of what could happen when we did drink. It left me to wonder what happened when Sqeak stayed at Fred's.
I wasn't sure they were serious when it was proposed. That's the way things were around my buds. They did things, and then they said they didn't do those things.
Once Fred got a girlfriend, he didn't have much time for his buds. His sexual encounters with boys stopped, as far as I know.
Fred had gone straight but Sqeaky still stayed over at his house on weekends. He just didn't call the four of us together to meet with him.
Sqeaky was lucky that stories of his endowment didn't follow him to high school. He started over as a virgin and except for handing out towels to the members of the teams I was on, he didn't attempt to participate on the team beyond that.
We had a complicated relationship and none of us was willing to tell tales about the others. The kind of friends we were in junior high school meant we'd stick close to each other in senior high.
Girls entered the picture for Fred and Barney in high school. Their buds were never quite as interesting as we'd once been, but we were together a lot but not as much as we once were. When there weren't dates on weekends, we talked about making a trip into town.
Human nature being what it is, and Fred being as horny as he was, the idea of him and Sqeak carrying on behind closed doors wasn't beyond reason, but then again, I was a guy who didn't believe that boys would pay money to see another boy's dick and let other boys know about it.
I had a lot to learn.
After high school, once there weren't hundreds of kids in my day to day life, I could test the waters without risking a flood of disapproval and rejection. Things were changing but not that much when it came to high school athletics.
I looked forward to the time when I no longer needed to hide being gay. It was coming. Athletes were coming out all the time. Most of them came out to their teammates, after they retired from competition. The ones who did come out, picked a time to do it that would create the least disruption to their lives.
I understood that and I thought they were smart. I was a high school kid and coming out to fifty other boys on one of the teams I joined wasn't about to happen. There would have been some acceptance from my teammates, but behind the smiles, in some cases, those friendships would never be as strong as they were before everyone knew that Clete Thomas was a gay boy.
I'd pick the time when the time was right.
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